SATURDAY 26 MARCH 2016

SAT 19:00 Treasures of the Indus (p02qvb6j)
Pakistan Unveiled

This is the story of the Indian subcontinent told through the treasures of three very different people, places and dynasties that have shaped the modern Indian world.

All too often, Pakistan is portrayed as a country of bombs, beards and burkhas. The view of it as a monolithic Muslim state is even embodied in the name of the country, 'the Islamic Republic of Pakistan'.

Yet, as Sona Datta shows, it used to be the meeting point for many different faiths from around the world and has an intriguing multicultural past - a past about which it is to some extent in denial. It also produced some extraordinary and little-known works of art which Sona, from her work as a curator at the British Museum, explores and explains.


SAT 20:00 Human Planet (b00rrd7t)
Mountains - Life in Thin Air

From lush cloud forests to bare summits that take your breath away, the higher you climb the tougher life gets on a mountain. Human Planet explores the extraordinary ways in which people survive at extreme altitudes where nature becomes utterly unforgiving.

In the Altai Mountains in western Mongolia, the vast open spaces make hunting for animals almost impossible, so the locals have forged an astonishing partnership with golden eagles which can do the hunting for them.

On the precipitous cliffs of the Simien Mountains of Ethiopia we join a young boy locked in a dramatic battle with fearsome gelada monkeys which are hellbent on raiding his family's meagre grain harvest.

In the Himalayan state of Nepal we witness a rarely seen ceremony - a sky burial. In a land where there is little wood to burn for cremation and where burying the dead is virtually impossible, the dead are fed to vultures in the ultimate reverence of nature.


SAT 21:00 Follow the Money (b0735dgj)
Series 1

Episode 3

Mads and Alf pursue leads to Energreen's missing traders. Claudia is questioned, but is quickly summoned to Abu Dhabi by Sander. He and the rest of Energreen's management are attending an important energy conference to attract major investors. Amid the sparkling luxury of the desert state, Claudia witnesses a new and revealing aspect of Sander's fascinating world and how he operates. Nicky and Bimse are afraid of getting caught and bury the money they found in the BMW. But all that cash is tempting. What's the harm in spending just a little of it?

In Danish with English subtitles.


SAT 22:00 Follow the Money (b0735dh0)
Series 1

Episode 4

Mads and Alf interrogate Ulrik, the CFO of Energreen. But while Mads and Alf delve deeper into the company's secrets, serious developments are taking place in Mads's private life - Kristina has lied to her husband. At Energreen, the management is hard at work trying to streamline the company before going public. Claudia is sent to Thullander Industries, a subsidiary, to make cutbacks and ends up in a sticky situation. Bimse is in trouble with some debts, and Nicky promises to help him.

In Danish with English subtitles.


SAT 23:00 Hello Quo (b03hy6vp)
You don't sell 128 million albums worldwide without putting in the graft and Status Quo are, quite possibly, the hardest-working band in Britain. Alan G Parker's documentary Hello Quo, specially re-edited for the BBC, recounts the band's epic story from the beginning - when south London schoolmates Francis Rossi and Alan Lancaster formed their first band with big ambitions of rock 'n' roll domination, quickly adding drummer John Coghlan and guitarist Rick Parfitt.

The film tells the story of Quo's hits from their unusually psychedelic early hit, Pictures of Matchstick Men, followed by a run through their classics from Down Down to Whatever You Want.

The band laughs off the constant ribbing about only using three chords and the film explores how Quo's heads-down boogie defined UK rock in the early 70s. Fender Stratocaster in hand, Quo have stood their ground and never shifted, but they have managed to adapt to scoring pop hits over five decades.

The original members of the 'frantic four' tell their story of a life in rock 'n' roll, alongside interviews from some prominent Quo fans, such as Paul Weller, whose first gig was the Quo at Guildford Civic Hall, to Brian May, who waxes lyrically about the opening riff to Pictures of Matchstick Men, while even Sir Cliff plays homage to the denim-clad rockers.


SAT 00:20 Status Quo: Live and Acoustic (b052yq1f)
Throughout Status Quo's six decades of rockin' and double denim, they have notched up 65 hit singles, sold over 100m records worldwide and have spent 415 weeks in the British singles chart, so it's no wonder Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt were awarded OBEs in 2010 for their services to music. And now, in a rare departure from their usual heads-down and boogie approach, they've gone acoustic!

Autumn 2014 saw the release of their 31st studio album and, in a complete departure from their usual rock sound, they transformed many of their legendary songs into acoustic, stripped-down versions. To celebrate this unique enterprise, they then performed many of the songs live at north London's legendary Roundhouse. Sitting down!

This concert features many of their classic tracks including Pictures of Matchstick Men, Down Down, What You're Proposing, Whatever You Want, Marguerita Time, Rockin' All Over the World and many more, performed with a string section, percussion, accordion, backing vocals and a front line of five acoustic guitars. Throughout the show Francis and Rick reminisce about taking this bold step and remind us of some of the stories behind some of their classic songs.


SAT 02:20 Top of the Pops (b074hn32)
Simon Bates introduces the pop programme, featuring The Evasions, Randy Crawford, Depeche Mode, Elaine Paige, Kirsty MacColl and Gillan, and a dance performance from Legs & Co.


SAT 02:55 Top of the Pops (b074hntc)
Peter Powell introduces the pop programme, featuring Spandau Ballet, Saxon, Dexys Midnight Runners, Third World, Kate Bush, Bad Manners and The Specials, and a dance performance from Legs & Co.


SAT 03:25 Hello Quo (b03hy6vp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 today]


SAT 04:45 Sounds of the Sixties (b075f8rg)
Reversions

First Steps

The Springfields, The Shadows and The Rolling Stones appear in this progressively more rebellious look at BBC early 1960s archive pop music.



SUNDAY 27 MARCH 2016

SUN 19:00 The Passion (b0760gxs)
BBC Four and The Space partner to bring a landmark re-imagining of The Passion to UK audiences this Easter. Critically acclaimed charity Streetwise Opera and world-renowned ensemble The Sixteen present a bold and contemporary retelling of the last days of Jesus's life.

The opera, based on Bach's famous 1727 oratorio the St Matthew Passion, is a fully-immersive promenade production in Manchester's Victorian Campfield Market.

Award-winning British filmmaker and director Penny Woolcock (Going to the Dogs and One Mile Away) directs an ensemble cast from Streetwise Opera - including performers who have experienced homelessness - and The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers. The production features a new 'resurrection' finale which has been jointly written by Streetwise Opera's performers and celebrated composer Sir James MacMillan.

Shot live on Easter Saturday, it is introduced by BBC presenter Mark Radcliffe.

The Space is a commissioning and development organisation which supports greater digital access to the arts, using technology to reach wider audiences and create new artistic experiences. The Passion marks the latest in a series of live productions, including Complicite's sold-out show The Encounter and Northern Ballet's new work 1984, which The Space has captured using digital technology so that wider audiences can enjoy world-class arts online, on TV or on demand.


SUN 20:00 The Brontes at the BBC (b075dwrd)
An exploration of the BBC's long love affair with the lives and works of the Bronte sisters - Charlotte, Emily and Anne. For over half a century, the ill-fated literary dynasty has proved irresistible to drama and documentary makers alike, keen to reinvent their novels for new audiences. So we get Bronte heroines reimagined for each emerging generation, first as classic 1950s housewife material, then wild child '60s 'chicks', Gothic waifs and, finally, empowered modern women. The Bronte males, meanwhile, are restyled as assorted prigs, wife-beaters, even brooding prog rockers and, of course, wouldn't you know it, new men. Wonderful stuff.


SUN 21:00 How to Make a Number One Record (b05r6q4r)
Great pop records are the soundtrack to our lives, and that is why number one hits hold a totemic place in our culture. This film goes in search of what it takes to get a number one hit single, uncovering how people have done it and the effect it had on their lives. As the exploration moves through the decades, the goal is to trace the various routes that lead to the top of the singles chart and discover the role played by art, science, chance and manipulation in reaching the pinnacle of pop.


SUN 22:00 Love Is All You Need (b039ktm4)
Ida, a Danish hairdresser who has lost her hair to cancer, returns home from the hospital one day to find her husband is cheating on her. She decides to travel to Italy on her own for her daughter's wedding, but discovers on arriving that the wedding gathering will present its own challenges - her husband has brought his young girlfriend with him, her daughter is harbouring second thoughts about getting married, and the groom's father is a good-looking but angry widower who blames the world for the loss of his wife. The only thing that he doesn't seem to detest is Ida herself.

In English, Danish and Italian with English subtitles.


SUN 23:50 One-Hit Wonders at the BBC (b05r7nxx)
Compilation of some indelible hits by artists we hardly heard from again, at least in a chart sense. Featuring Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)? - a number one in 1969 and a hit he never really matched, Trio's 1982 smash Da Da Da, Phyllis Nelson's 1985 lovers rock-style classic Move Closer, and The New Radicals' 1999 hit You Get What You Give.

We travel through the years selecting some of your favourite number ones and a few others that came close, revealing what's happened to the one-off hitmakers since and exploring the unwritten laws that help make sense of the one-hit wonder phenomenon.


SUN 00:50 Len Goodman's Dancing Feet: The British Ballroom Story (b01pjqpm)
Len Goodman, the head judge of Strictly Come Dancing, takes to the dance floor to discover the golden age of ballroom and recalls the time when Britain went ballroom barmy.

In the early 20th century millions enjoyed dancing. Graceful movement was everything as we grappled with the waltz, the tango and each other. Len also reveals a surprising world of scandal and outrage - a time when ballroom was considered radical and trendy. What was it about ballroom that people enjoyed so much and why did we eventually turn our backs on what Len considers the greatest dance form of all?

Len visits Blackpool, the spiritual home of ballroom, and demonstrates some popular steps with professional dancer Erin Boag. He discovers how the smart set danced the night away at the Cafe de Paris and returns to a favourite dance hall from his youth, the Rivoli in south London.

Len talks to dancers, singers and musicians who remember the golden age and discovers the people who introduced 'rules' to ballroom - the dance leaders and teachers who were concerned that ballroom was out of control and needed new regulations to govern steps, movement and music.


SUN 01:50 The Brontes at the BBC (b075dwrd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SUN 02:50 The Story of British Pathé (b0141mmz)
Entertaining Britain

While the company was famous for its pioneering news reports, it also produced immensely popular 'cinemagazines', which entertained cinemagoers for decades. Initially made to boost the nation's morale after the First World War, entertaining strands such as Pathe Pictorial and Eve's Film Review were designed to appeal to women who were interested in fashion, celebrities and movie stars - and offered plenty of handy hints for those running the home. In the 1930s, the arrival of synchronised sound increased the popularity of cinemagazines, and the company launched Pathetone Weekly - a strand that featured what Pathe believed were the 'novel, amusing and strange' dimensions of our national life.



MONDAY 28 MARCH 2016

MON 19:00 The World's Most Beautiful Eggs: The Genius of Carl Faberge (b0336tf3)
Stephen Smith explores the extraordinary life and work of the virtuoso jeweller Carl Faberge. He talks to HRH Prince Michael of Kent about Faberge items in the Royal Collection and to Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who spent $100 million acquiring nine exquisite Faberge eggs. The bejewelled trinkets Faberge made for the last tsars of Russia in the twilight of their rule have become some of the most sought-after treasures in the world, sometimes worth millions.

Smith follows in Faberge's footsteps, from the legendary Green Vaults in Dresden to the palaces of the tsars and the corridors of the Kremlin museum, as he discovers how this fin-de-siecle genius transformed his father's modest business into the world's most famous supplier of luxury items.


MON 20:00 Digging for Britain (b074hn34)
Series 4

North

Professor Alice Roberts explores the year's most exciting archaeological finds in the north of Britain. A team discovers clues to Scotland's first kingdoms, metal detectorists unearth a hoard of Viking treasure, and a new housing development reveals a graveyard of Iron Age warriors.


MON 21:00 Art of Scandinavia (b075dxdv)
Democratic by Design

In the final instalment of Andrew Graham-Dixon's windswept journey through the art of the Norselands, we arrive in Sweden - home of Ikea and a tradition of brilliant furniture design stretching back to the early years of the 20th century. Sweden has made its modern democratic mission one of comfort and civilised living for the masses - but has it got there?


MON 22:00 1916: The Irish Rebellion (b075vnht)
Liam Neeson narrates an account of the Dublin Easter uprising of 1916 as seen through Irish eyes. Using archival narratives of the participants, together with contributions from academics from the US, Ireland and Britain, the film puts the uprising into the context of hundreds of years of Anglo-Irish history, reveals the rebellion as its participants experienced it, and assesses its tragic cost in lives, both civilian and military, then, and in the decades that followed.


MON 23:25 Treasures of the Indus (p02qvb6j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


MON 00:25 Timeshift (b06l0v9d)
Series 15

Looking for Mr Bond: 007 at the BBC

After more than 60 years tracking James Bond in print and on screen, the BBC opens up its vaults to reveal the forgotten files on the world's most famous secret agent. Featuring rare and candid interviews with all six actors to play 007, and exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, this is James Bond unguarded, unrestricted and unseen.


MON 01:25 Premium Bond with Mark Gatiss and Matthew Sweet (p02sx893)
In impeccable evening dress, Mark Gatiss and Matthew Sweet ponder the Bonds we've seen on screen since Dr No in 1962 and ask - which 007 is the best? To date, six actors have portrayed British Secret Service agent James Bond. Was Sean Connery impossible to surpass? Was George Lazenby really that bad? Was Live and Let Die really a blaxploitation movie in disguise? Gatiss and Sweet consider these and many other questions, and raise a martini in honour of their premium Bond.


MON 02:20 Art of Scandinavia (b075dxdv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


MON 03:20 Goya Exposed with Jake Chapman (b06s1w08)
Throughout their artistic career, Jake and Dinos Chapman have returned again and again to a single artwork by the great Spanish artist Francisco de Goya. The Disasters of War are a set of 83 etchings that offer a harrowing account of the atrocities of the Peninsular War (1807-14), but for Jake Chapman they are much more than a matter of historical record. They have provided the inspiration for countless Chapman Brothers artworks across more than two decades, from model recreations and 'rectified' prints to shop mannequins and full-scale sculptures in bronze, some of which were nominated for the Turner Prize.

In this film, Jake explores why Goya's famous etching series is so central to his art. He re-examines his relationship to the Spanish artist by visiting Goya's hometown Zaragoza for the first time, and by spending time at the Prado in Madrid where some of Goya's greatest works hang on the walls.

As Jake works on a new Disasters of War model in his London studio, he explains why for him there is a fundamental conflict at the heart of Goya's art - in their gruesome detail his images seem to celebrate violence rather than protest against it. Jake explores this contradiction that art history has chosen to ignore, and explains how it tells us something profound about the way we see ourselves and our past.



TUESDAY 29 MARCH 2016

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b075bglh)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Pagans and Pilgrims: Britain's Holiest Places (b01rsl66)
Caves

Presenter and Welsh poet Ifor ap Glyn explores the wealth of Britain's extraordinary holy places on a pilgrimage that spans almost 2,000 years of history. Travelling across the breadth of the UK, Ifor uncovers the stories and rich history behind many of our most famous sites, explaining the myths and legends of some of Britain's most sacred places.

Ifor sets out to understand what happens when our religious urges drive us underground. His first stop is Lud's Church in Derbyshire, one of the most dramatic and eerie holy places in the land, once described as 'the place for the Devil to say matins'.

Ifor then heads back 14,000 years to find evidence of perhaps the oldest holy place in Britain. He follows the path of St Cuthbert's body as it was shifted between caves in the north of England to escape the attentions of Viking raiders and visits the cave of St Govan where a hermit was miraculously enveloped in rock to evade local gangs of wreckers.

He meets a nun in Norwich who tells him about a young woman who was bricked up alive for over 40 years in an act of almost unbelievable devotion and finally heads to a crypt of Ripon Cathedral to discover one of the most dramatic pieces of religious theatre in Britain.


TUE 20:00 Timeshift (b04z23k9)
Series 14

Battle for the Himalayas: The Fight to Film Everest

Between the 1920s and the 1960s the world's great powers sent vast military-style expeditions to conquer the peaks of the Himalayas, with Everest at their head. This was a great game played - camera in hand - by Imperial Britain, Nazi Germany and superpower America. As a result, Himalayan mountaineering's most iconic, epic and tragic moments didn't just go down in history, but were caught on film - from the deaths of Mallory and Irvine on Everest in 1924, to Everest's final conquest in 1953 by Hillary and Tensing. Using footage never before seen on British television, this is the story how of how film-makers turned the great peaks into great propaganda.


TUE 21:00 The Beginning and End of the Universe (b075dxsq)
The End

Professor Jim Al-Khalili carries us into the distant future to try to discover how the universe will end - with a bang or a whimper? He reveals a universe far stranger than anyone imagined and, at the frontier of our understanding, encounters a mysterious and enigmatic force that promises to change physics forever.


TUE 22:00 Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams (b0229pbp)
Documentary presented by Professor Simon Schaffer which charts the amazing and untold story of automata - extraordinary clockwork machines designed hundreds of years ago to mimic and recreate life.

The film brings the past to life in vivid detail as we see how and why these masterpieces were built. Travelling around Europe, Simon uncovers the history of these machines and shows us some of the most spectacular examples, from an entire working automaton city to a small boy who can be programmed to write and even a device that can play chess. All the machines Simon visits show a level of technical sophistication and ambition that still amazes today.

As well as the automata, Simon explains in great detail the world in which they were made - the hardship of the workers who built them, their role in global trade and the industrial revolution and the eccentric designers who dreamt them up. Finally, Simon reveals that these long-forgotten marriages of art and engineering are actually the ancestors of many of our most-loved modern technologies, from recorded music to the cinema and much of the digital world.


TUE 23:00 Timeshift (b00dzzdc)
Series 8

Last Days of Steam

The surprising story of how Britain entered a new age of steam railways after the Second World War and why it quickly came to an end.

After the war, the largely destroyed railways of Europe were rebuilt to carry more modern diesel and electric trains. Britain, however, chose to build thousands of brand new steam locomotives. Did we stay with steam because coal was seen as the most reliable power source, or were the railways run by men who couldn't bear to let go of their beloved steam trains?

The new British locomotives were designed to stay in service well into the 1970s, but in some cases they were taken off the railways and scrapped within just five years. When Dr Richard Beeching took over British Railways in the 1960s the writing was on the wall, and in 1968 the last steam passenger train blew its whistle.

But while steam use declined, steam enthusiasm grew. As many steam engines lay rusting in scrapyards around Britain, enthusiasts raised funds to buy, restore and return them to their former glory. In 2008, the first brand new steam locomotive to be built in Britain in nearly 50 years rolled off the line, proving our enduring love of these machines.


TUE 00:00 The Story of British Pathé (b014bb01)
Around the World

For more than half a century film and newsreel company British Pathe documented almost every aspect of British life, but it also captivated audiences with enthralling stories from overseas.

In the age before mass tourism made international travel affordable and accessible to most of us, their sumptuous travelogues and anthropological documentaries offered British cinemagoers a rare opportunity to glimpse faraway worlds. For decades Pathe dutifully covered royal tours to every corner of the British Empire, but by the 1950s, when the first package holidays were sold, the company also recorded the experiences of the first generations of Britons who were able to indulge in leisure travel around the globe.

This film examines the unique footage captured by the company's cameras across five continents during Pathe's seven decades of international film-making.


TUE 01:00 How to Get Ahead (b03yfwk1)
At Renaissance Court

Writer, broadcaster and Newsnight arts correspondent Stephen Smith explores Renaissance Florence under the reign of Grand Duke Cosimo Medici. Cosimo's fledgling court prized the finer things in life and some of the greatest painters, sculptors and craftsmen in world history came to serve the Grand Duke. But successful courtiers had to have brains as well as brawn. The canniest of them looked to theorists like Niccolo Machiavelli for underhand ways to get ahead, whilst enlightened polymaths turned their minds to the heavens, and to ice cream.


TUE 02:00 Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams (b0229pbp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


TUE 03:00 The Beginning and End of the Universe (b075dxsq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 30 MARCH 2016

WED 19:00 World News Today (b075bglr)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Welsh Railways (b01875ph)
Beating Beeching: Part 1

The steam railways of Wales seemed lost forever with the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, but this series celebrates their revival with wonderful colour archive film combined with the memories of passengers and railwaymen from the age of steam.

In this episode, we meet a schoolboy driver, a station master, firemen and some holidaymakers who share a passion for steam with the volunteers at Llangollen Railway.

We also meet the last generation of Welsh steam railwaymen and visit the heritage railway which keeps their glorious past alive.


WED 20:00 Dan Cruickshank's Warsaw: Resurrecting History (b06r12fd)
Dan Cruickshank returns to his childhood home of Warsaw for the first time in almost 60 years. In a personal and moving film, he recalls his boyhood memories to explore the memories of the city and the memories of its people. No city in Europe suffered so much destruction in the Second World War, no city rose up so heroically from the ashes. The Nazis had razed Warsaw to the ground, but after the war the people fought hard to bring their city back from the dead in one of the greatest reconstruction jobs in history. As a boy, Cruickshank lived in the rebuilt old town and it inspired his love of architecture and made him the man he is today.


WED 21:00 Storyville (b075f0n4)
My Nazi Legacy

Three men travel together across Europe. For two of them the journey involves a confrontation with the acts of their fathers, who were both senior Nazi officers. For the third, the eminent human rights lawyer and author Philippe Sands, it means visiting the place where much of his own Jewish family was destroyed by the fathers of the two men he has come to know. An emotional, psychological exploration of three men wrestling with their past, the present of Europe and conflicting versions of the truth.


WED 22:30 Return to Larkinland (b06hhlyl)
Writer and critic AN Wilson revisits the life and work of one of the greatest English poets of the 20th century, Philip Larkin - a poet soon to be honoured with a place in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey.

Wilson traces Larkin's life from his childhood in Coventry, through to his student days at Oxford and then his adult years working in university libraries, whilst writing some of the best-loved and notorious poems in the English language.

Wilson, who knew Larkin in his later life, remembers memorable encounters with the poet and this personal connection helps him to reveal a complex man with a complicated, and at times tortured, private life. As part of this candid exploration into Larkin's life, Wilson confronts the allegations of racism, bigotry and misogyny that emerged following the publication of his Selected Letters and authorised biography, and which have dogged his posthumous reputation.

However, Wilson concludes that it is Larkin's poems, not his faults, that have survived. Featuring readings of his work by Larkin himself, including the greatness of The Whitsun Weddings, Arundel Tomb, Church Going and Aubade, Wilson argues that Larkin spoke for Britain between the 1950s and 1970s perhaps more than any other writer.


WED 23:30 Al Murray's Great British War Movies (b04fmfrg)
Comedian and history buff Al Murray is joined by historian Dan Snow, writer Natalie Haynes and broadcaster and film expert Matthew Sweet for a fresh look at a subject very close to his heart - the great British war movie. This roundtable discussion looks at both the films themselves, from A Bridge too Far to Zulu, and uses them as a lens on British history, cultural attitudes and our changing views on conflict over the decades.

With dozens of clips from classic films such as Where Eagles Dare, The Dam Busters, In Which We Serve, Escape to Victory and The Eagle Has Landed, nostalgic memories of Bank Holiday afternoons in front of the telly and lashings of tea, rousing speeches and stiff upper lips, Al and his guests explore why the British are so obsessed with films about war - and what this says about us.


WED 00:30 Timeshift (b04z23k9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Tuesday]


WED 01:30 Tales of Winter: The Art of Snow and Ice (b01q6qj6)
Winter was not always beautiful. Until Pieter Bruegel painted Hunters in the Snow, the long bitter months had never been transformed into a thing of beauty. This documentary charts how mankind's ever changing struggle with winter has been reflected in western art throughout the ages, resulting in images that are now amongst the greatest paintings of all time. With contributions from Grayson Perry, Will Self, Don McCullin and many others, the film takes an eclectic group of people from all walks of life out into the cold to reflect on the paintings that have come to define the art of snow and ice.


WED 03:00 Dan Cruickshank's Warsaw: Resurrecting History (b06r12fd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



THURSDAY 31 MARCH 2016

THU 19:00 World News Today (b075bgm0)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b075f6my)
Richard Skinner introduces the pop programme, featuring the Vapors, Tight Fit, Gidea Park, Sheena Easton, Visage and the Specials, and a dance performance from Legs & Co.


THU 20:00 Timeshift (b00x7c3z)
Series 10

The Golden Age of Coach Travel

Documentary which takes a glorious journey back to the 1950s, when the coach was king. From its early origins in the charabanc, the coach had always been the people's form of transport. Cheaper and more flexible than the train, it allowed those who had travelled little further than their own villages and towns a first heady taste of exploration and freedom. It was a safe capsule on wheels from which to venture out into a wider world.

The distinctive livery of the different coach companies was part of a now-lost world, when whole communities crammed into coach after coach en route to pleasure spots like Blackpool, Margate and Torquay. With singsongs, toilet stops and the obligatory pub halt, it didn't matter how long it took to get there because the journey was all part of the adventure.


THU 21:00 Ireland's Treasures Uncovered (b070w5kh)
The story of the iconic Irish artefacts that have helped to shape and create modern Ireland, both north and south.

The programme reveals the surprising tales behind treasures such as the Tara Brooch, the Broighter Hoard, the Waterford Charter Roll and others, revealing new stories behind the artefacts that we thought we knew. It also reveals the most recent astounding finds that are adding to the list of Ireland's Treasures.

Using key access to Ireland's two largest museums, in Belfast and Dublin, the programme brings together archaeologists and curators who have spent their lives working to understand the true context for these emblematic treasures.


THU 22:00 Treasures of the Anglo Saxons (b00t6xzx)
Art historian Dr Nina Ramirez reveals the codes and messages hidden in Anglo-Saxon art. From the beautiful jewellery that adorned the first violent pagan invaders through to the stunning Christian manuscripts they would become famous for, she explores the beliefs and ideas that shaped Anglo-Saxon art.

Examining many of the greatest Anglo Saxon treasures - such as the Sutton Hoo Treasures, the Staffordshire Hoard, the Franks Casket and the Lindisfarne Gospels - Dr Ramirez charts 600 years of artistic development which was stopped dead in its tracks by the Norman Conquest.


THU 23:00 The Beginning and End of the Universe (b075dxsq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


THU 00:00 Top of the Pops (b075f6my)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 00:35 Girls in Bands at the BBC (b06mxpjc)
Compilation celebrating some guitar band performances at the BBC that feature some of the best female musicians in rock. Beginning with the oft-forgotten American group Fanny performing You're the One, it's a journey along rock's spectrum from the 1970s to now.

The selection includes the powerful vocals of Elkie Brooks on Vinegar Joe's Proud to Be a Honky Woman, the mesmerising poetry of Patti Smith's Horses and the upbeat energy of The Go-Go's on We Got the Beat.

Mighty basslines come courtesy of Tina Weymouth on Psycho Killer and Kim Gordon on Sugar Kane, whilst we trace the line of indie rock from the Au Pairs through Lush, Elastica and Garbage to current band Savages.


THU 01:35 Girl in a Band: Tales from the Rock 'n' Roll Front Line (b06l17fn)
All too often, every great female rock musician has to answer a predictable question - what is it like being a girl in a band?

For many, the sight of a girl shredding a guitar or laying into the drums is still a bit of a novelty. As soon as women started forming their own bands they were given labels - the rock chick, the girl band or one half of the rock 'n' roll couple.

Kate Mossman aims to look beyond the cliches of fallen angels, grunge babes and rock chicks as she gets the untold stories from rock's frontline to discover if it has always been different for the girl in a band.


THU 02:35 From Scotland with Love (b047lx52)
Made entirely of Scottish film archive, a journey into our collective past, the film explores universal themes of love, loss, resistance, migration, work and play. Ordinary people, some long since dead, their names and identities largely forgotten, appear shimmering from the depths of the vaults to take a starring role. These silent individuals become composite characters, who emerge to tell us their stories, given voice by King Creosote's poetic music and lyrics.



FRIDAY 01 APRIL 2016

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b075f6z9)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (b075f6zc)
Steve Wright introduces the pop programme, featuring Kim Wilde, The Undertones, Duran Duran, Bill Wyman, Stevie Wonder, Spandau Ballet, The Specials and Shakin' Stevens, and a dance performance from Legs & Co.


FRI 20:00 Sir Peter Maxwell Davies: Master and Maverick (b0760h88)
Tom Service presents a tribute to the provocative composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, who died in March at the age of 81. Extraordinary performances and documentary from the BBC's television archive that follow Max's journey from his radical origins as an Angry Young Man in the 1950s to his later life and work on his adopted home in the Orkney Islands and his surprise appointment as Master of the Queen's Music in 2004. With performances by the Fires of London, the Sixteen and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.


FRI 21:00 Meat Loaf: In and out of Hell (b04xdrrb)
Since the release of the Bat Out of Hell album, Meat Loaf has possessed the kind of international status that few artists obtain. His larger-than-life persona and performances are fuelled by a passion for theatre and storytelling. This candid profile reveals the man and his music through his own testimony and from the accounts of those closest to him.

Meat Loaf's life story is one of epic proportions - he survived a childhood of domestic violence only to face years of record company rejection before eventually finding global fame. Along the way he experienced bankruptcy, health scares, bust-ups and one of the greatest comebacks of all time. All this and more is explored in the film, which features behind-the-scenes footage of his Las Vegas residency, plus plans for a new album featuring songs by Jim Steinman.

The film also revisits the Dallas of Meat Loaf's early years and includes insights from his high school friends, who reveal how Meat really got his famous moniker.

After his mother died, Meat Loaf fled Texas for the bright lights of LA. He sang in itinerant rock bands, but no-one would give him a recording contract. By 1969 he was broke and disillusioned. His break would take the form of a musical. He was offered a part in Hair, having been invited to audition whilst working as a parking attendant outside the theatre. Shortly afterwards he met Jim Steinman and the road to success really began. Yet the Hair gig was the beginning of an enduring love affair with theatre that is reflected in his singing persona today.

His first album, the now legendary Bat Out of Hell, was initially rejected by scores of record companies, yet went on to spend a staggering 485 weeks in the UK charts. The whole album is a masterwork of storytelling that Meat Loaf and Steinman worked on for four years and then battled to get heard. Meat Loaf and those who worked on the album - from Todd Rundgren to Ellen Foley - reflect on the songs, and celebrate the alchemy that resulted in such a blistering back catalogue.

When Bat Out Of Hell II was finally released 15 years after the first album, it defied industry expectations, with I'd Do Anything for Love reaching number one in 28 countries. It is considered one of the greatest comebacks in music history. More albums and hits were to follow across the '90s and '00s, alongside a varied and successful acting career. Mark Kermode examines some of the roles Meat Loaf made his own, in films as diverse as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Fight Club.

Having traversed the peaks and troughs of a career spanning the best part of 50 years, this consummate performer finally reveals what spurs him on, in this, the inside story of a bat out of hell who continues to blaze a trail into the hearts and minds of millions.


FRI 22:00 Metal Britannia (b00r600m)
Nigel Planer narrates a documentary which traces the origins and development of British heavy metal from its humble beginnings in the industrialised Midlands to its proud international triumph.

In the late 60s a number of British bands were forging a new kind of sound. Known as hard rock, it was loud, tough, energetic and sometimes dark in outlook. They didn't know it, but Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and, most significantly, Black Sabbath were defining what first became heavy rock and then eventually heavy metal.

Inspired by blues rock, progressive rock, classical music and high energy American rock, they synthesised the sound that would inspire bands like Judas Priest to take metal even further during the 70s.

By the 80s its originators had fallen foul of punk rock, creative stasis or drug and alcohol abuse. But a new wave of British heavy metal was ready to take up the crusade. With the success of bands like Iron Maiden, it went global.

Contributors include Lemmy from Motorhead, Sabbath's Tony Iommi, Ian Gillan from Deep Purple, Judas Priest singer Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden and Saxon's Biff Byford.


FRI 23:30 Metal at the BBC (b00r600p)
Compilation of memorable heavy metal performances from BBC TV shows, including Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Motorhead.


FRI 00:00 Top of the Pops (b075f6zc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


FRI 00:35 Meat Loaf: In and out of Hell (b04xdrrb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 01:35 Metal Britannia (b00r600m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


FRI 03:05 Metal at the BBC (b00r600p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:30 today]


FRI 03:35 Sounds of the Sixties (b075f7r4)
Reversions

Swinging Sixties 1

Forget Madchester, forget Factory, forget Oasis. Manchester never sounded better than Herman's Hermits and the Hollies, who feature in this archive extravaganza.