SATURDAY 07 JULY 2018
SAT 19:00 Earth's Greatest Spectacles (b070p5yw)
Svalbard
Set in three of the most seasonally changeable landscapes on earth - Svalbard, Okavango and New England - this series showcases the stunning transformations that occur each year, revealing the unique processes behind them and showing how wildlife has adapted to cope with the changes.
Svalbard in the Arctic spends many months of the year in complete darkness, an unrelenting frozen winter with temperatures down to -40 Celsius. But when the sun finally reappears, the landscape magically transforms from an ice world into a rich tundra, full of exotic plants, birds, Arctic foxes, polar bears, walruses and reindeers. This film captures the changes in all their glory and reveals how this transformation is only possible thanks to some bizarre microorganisms that feed on ice and the stunning abilities of migrating birds.
SAT 20:00 Simon King's Shetland Adventure (b00qykcf)
Episode 3
Simon King, wildlife cameraman and Springwatch presenter, is fulfilling a boyhood dream and experiencing the Shetland Islands with his family through the changing seasons.
Simon is enjoying the islands at their best, with 19 hours of glorious sunlight, the remarkable 'simmer dim' - the Shetland term for the midnight gloaming - and a plethora of wildlife.
His expensive high-speed camera breaks, but with a little help from the locals, he manages to get it repaired and uses it to capture some wonderful footage of powerful gannets diving for fish.
He also follows an otter family's poignant separation as the one-year-old cub is pushed away by his mother to lead an independent life.
Shetland has more than lived up to Simon's expectations for wilderness and given his family an experience they will never forget. The visit ends with a sighting of a pod of killer whales, just metres away from where he is standing. A suitable end to a great trip.
SAT 21:00 Hidden (b0b8fnrn)
Series 1
Episode 5
The police realise the horror of Mali Pryce's circumstances as the post-mortem results come in - and the urgency of the investigation increases.
DI Cadi John sees that her father's health is rapidly failing, and as she realises that her ex-DCI father may have been critical in the wrongful arrest of Endaf Elwy, a man who was imprisoned for murdering a young woman who bore a striking resemblance to the other missing girls, she knows that she will need to have a difficult conversation with him.
Meanwhile, Lea Pryce goes to see Ieuan Rhys, desperate for some kind of connection with her late sister. Ieuan toys with her, and Lea finds herself out of her depth and having to deal with a dangerous and violent man.
SAT 22:00 Rik Mayall: Lord of Misrule (b04w7m97)
Comedian Rik Mayall died suddenly on 9 June 2014. Mayall's blend of rocket-fuelled physical comedy, surrealism, subversive satire and pompous punk wit left a body of work that spanned four decades. Mayall's characters include the Black Country's investigative nerd Kevin Turvey, Felicity Kendal-adoring student and 'People's Poet' Rik in The Young Ones, ruthless MP Alan B'Stard in The New Statesman, seedy loser Richie in Bottom, and larger-than-life characters Robin Hood and flying ace Lord Flashheart from Blackadder.
Narrated by Simon Callow, this programme salutes Rik Mayall and celebrates his part in the UK's comedy history using rare and unseen archive footage. It also features contributions from people who knew or admired him, including Michael Palin, Simon Pegg, Lenny Henry, Ben Elton, Alexei Sayle, Christopher Ryan, Tim McInnerny, Jools Holland, Ruby Wax and Greg Davies.
SAT 23:00 Sound of Cinema: The Music That Made the Movies (b03bm2fy)
New Frontiers
In the last of three programmes in which composer Neil Brand celebrates the art of cinema music, Neil explores how changing technology has taken soundtracks in bold new directions and even altered our very idea of how a film should sound.
Neil tells the story of how the 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet ended up with a groundbreaking electronic score that blurred the line between music and sound effects, and explains why Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds has one of the most effective soundtracks of any of his films - despite having no music. He shows how electronic music crossed over from pop into cinema with Midnight Express and Chariots of Fire, while films like Apocalypse Now pioneered the concept of sound design - that sound effects could be used for storytelling and emotional impact.
Neil tracks down some of the key composers behind these innovations to talk about their work, such as Vangelis (Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner), Carter Burwell (Twilight, No Country for Old Men) and Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream, Moon).
SAT 00:00 Top of the Pops (b0b9b1xw)
Gary Davies, Janice Long, Dixie Peach, John Peel and Steve Wright present the most popular hits of 1985, with stars in the studio and on video, first broadcast on 25 December 1985.
SAT 01:00 Smashing Hits! The 80s Pop Map of Britain and Ireland (b0b99nq0)
Series 1
Episode 1
Two 80s icons explore the distinct sounds that came out of different parts of Britain and Ireland in one of pop's golden decades.
Midge Ure, lead singer of Ultravox and one of the men behind Band Aid, and Kim Appleby, who had a string of hits with her sister Mel in the Stock, Aitken and Waterman-produced band Mel and Kim, go on a journey back in time to the 80s to figure out why certain cities produced their own diverse tunes.
It's a fascinating tale. Emerging from the ashes of punk, British and Irish music ripped up the pop rule book in the 80s and topped the charts worldwide. But there was no definitive 'British' pop sound. Innovative chart-toppers were being produced by artists hailing from all over the UK and Ireland.
In this first episode, Midge Ure and Kim Appleby explore London's new romantic movement, travel to Coventry to investigate the rise of ska and speak to some of Sheffield's electronic music pioneers.
The show features interviews with key figures, like Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet, Marco Pirroni from Adam and the Ants, Pauline Black from The Selecter, Martin Ware and Glenn Gregory from Heaven 17 and 'super-producer' Trevor Horn. But of course the star is the music - and this episode includes some of the best tunes, videos and performances from the early part of this marvellous musical decade.
SAT 02:00 Je t'aime: The Story of French Song with Petula Clark (b05vnhz1)
'I want to make people cry even when they don't understand my words.' - Edith Piaf
This unique film explores the story of the lyric-driven French chanson and looks at some of the greatest artists and examples of the form. Award-winning singer and musician Petula Clark, who shot to stardom in France in the late 1950s for her nuanced singing and lyrical exploration, is our guide.
We meet singers and artists who propelled chanson into the limelight, including Charles Aznavour (a protege of Edith Piaf), Juliette Greco (whom Jean-Paul Sartre described as having 'a million poems in her voice'), Anna Karina (muse of Jean-Luc Godard and darling of the French cinema's new wave), actress and singer Jane Birkin, who had a global hit (along with Serge Gainsbourg) with the controversial Je t'aime (Moi non plus), and Marc Almond, who has received great acclaim with his recordings of Jacques Brel songs.
In exploring the famous chanson tradition and the prodigious singers who made the songs their own, we continue the story into contemporary French composition, looking at new lyrical forms exemplified by current artists such as Stromae, Zaz, Tetes Raides and Etienne Daho, who also give exclusive interviews.
The film shines a spotlight onto a musical form about which the British are largely unfamiliar, illuminating a history that is tender, funny, revealing and absorbing.
SAT 03:00 Simon King's Shetland Adventure (b00qykcf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
SUNDAY 08 JULY 2018
SUN 19:00 Summer Night Concert from Vienna (b0b8rc43)
2018
Katie Derham introduces 2018's open-air concert from the magnificent gardens of the Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, given by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra led by Russian conductor Valery Gergiev.
Italian music dominates the programme, with highlights from classical hits such as Rossini's William Tell overture, Mascagni's Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana and Verdi's Triumphal March from his opera Aida. They are joined by Russian superstar soprano Anna Netrebko performing some of her favourite arias, including Puccini's Vissi d'arte from Tosca and O mio babbino caro from Gianni Schicchi.
SUN 20:15 Jago: A Life Underwater (b08rp0ld)
Documentary about Rohani, an 80-year-old hunter who dives like a fish on a single breath, descending to great depths for several minutes. Set against the spectacular backdrop of the Togian Islands in Indonesia where he grew up, this award-winning film recreates events that capture the extraordinary turning points in his life, as a hunter and as a man.
SUN 21:00 Horizon (b0761llv)
2016
The Mystery of Dark Energy
Horizon looks at dark energy - the mysterious force that is unexpectedly causing the universe's expansion to speed up.
The effects of dark energy were discovered in 1998, but physicists still don't know what it is. Worse, its very existence calls into question Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity - the cornerstone of modern physics.
The hunt for the identity of dark energy is on. Experiments on earth and in space generate data that might provide a clue, but there are also hopes that another Einstein might emerge - someone who can write a new theory explaining the mystery of the dark energy.
SUN 22:00 The Sky at Night (b0b9v3lf)
Outback Astronomy
In February 2018, news broke that astronomers had seen the cosmic dawn - the moment when stars first formed, flooding the universe with light. What's remarkable is that this incredible event was discovered by an instrument the size of a ping-pong table in a remote corner of Western Australia.
Chris Lintott travels to the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory to find out how they did it and what else the extraordinary radio telescopes there can tell us about the universe.
SUN 22:30 Hunting the Nazi Gold Train (b07yc9zf)
In August 2015, two amateur researchers declared they had found a lost Nazi train buried in a railway cutting near Walbrzych, southern Poland. Better still, they believed the train might be loaded with gold, armaments or precious treasure, all left behind by the Nazis at the end of World War II. The claim sparked a global media frenzy. Locals have long believed that at least one train, loaded with looted Nazi gold, left the provincial capital Wroclaw in early 1945. But until now, no one has discovered what happened to it.
Dan Snow follows the treasure hunters as they look for the gold train, while also carrying out his own investigation into this story, one that leads all the way to Adolf Hitler himself and his secret plans for this remote corner of the Third Reich during the last months of World War II.
Dan explores the astonishing underground tunnel complex called Riese, built on the fuehrer's orders almost certainly as an underground city to house armaments production beyond the reach of Allied bombing. Nearby, Dan visits the Ksiaz Castle, which at the end of the war was converted into a possible bolthole for Hitler and his high command. A door from the fuehrer's bedroom leads down to tunnels that could have linked the palace with the underground Riese complex.
Dan considers the evidence that Hitler was planning to retreat to this near impregnable complex and fight on. As Dan uncovers Hitler's possible plans for this region, it also lends weight to the theories and stories that there is a hidden tunnel here, a tunnel that could even contain the legendary train full of gold.
Finally, Dan joins the treasure hunters as they begin the excavation itself, and reveals the outcome of the hunt for the Nazi gold train.
SUN 23:30 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?
SUN 00:30 The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers (b09j2vvp)
Series 1
Power
Alinka Echeverria reveals how artists became the authors of Mexico's official history, defining the origins of its power and wielding significant influence over millennia.
Following the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910, landscape paintings established a new style that was resolutely Mexican, and confirmed the re-established connections between Mexico's indigenous population and their land. Forces of nature and Mexico's landscape continue to be integral to the Mexican sense of artistic identity.
The relationship between art and power can be seen throughout world history. But Alinka argues that Mexico differs. Not only did indigenous artists project the power of the elites in its ancient civilisations, artists became the authors of Mexican history and the power brokers in the struggles for political dominance.
In Mexico's history, power changes hands quickly and often violently. The city state of Cholula dominated central Mesoamerica around 1,000 years ago, but fell to Spanish conquistadors in the space of a day.
Nearly 500 years later, one of the largest triumphal arches in the world was intended to express the unassailable power of Porfirio Diaz. But before the arch was completed, the Mexican Revolution swept Diaz from power. The fragile nation needed a new national story to provide unity and stability. Art was to create it.
Diego Rivera painted a spectacular sweep of Mexican history as he, and the government who commissioned him, wanted it understood. It was origin myth and propaganda rolled into one. The power of art to establish Mexican nationalism was extraordinary. Frida Kahlo used her considerable influence to make the personal political, in both gender politics and amplifying indigenous voices.
Today, nowhere is it more important to express Mexican power and identity than at its borders. In Tijuana, on the border with the United States, the creativity of individual artists and collectives is fired by matters of everyday politics and the proximity to their northern neighbour. The results underline how art and power in Mexico are inextricably linked.
SUN 01:30 David Starkey's Music and Monarchy (b03891w7)
Great British Music
Dr David Starkey's exploration of how the monarchy shaped Britain's music reaches the 18th century, when Great Britain became a dominant military and economic power, and the century which brought us patriotic classics such as God Save the King - the world's first national anthem - and Rule Britannia. Yet this was a time when the monarchy had never been more fragile, having lost much of its political and religious power and imported its ruling house from abroad. The supreme irony was that it was a musician from Germany, George Frideric Handel, who gave Great Britain and its new royal dynasty its distinctive musical voice.
Featuring specially recorded performances from Westminster Abbey Choir and a full baroque orchestra of Handel's Hallejulah Chorus and Zadok the Priest. And the Academy of Ancient Music performs extracts from Handel's operas and other works. Soloists joining the performances include Elin Manahan Thomas, singing Eternal Source of Light Divine, which was written for Queen Anne's birthday in 1714 and was performed by Elin to a global audience at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
Also featuring what is believed to be the first public performance for 300 years of the music written for the Act of Union between England and Scotland in 1707 - sung by the choir of St Paul's Cathedral just as it was back then.
David also discovers the true stories behind Handel's Water Music, written to accompany George I on a trip along the Thames, as well as his Music for Royal Fireworks, full of military instruments at the insistence of the soldier-king George II. He also visits the country estate of Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, where Thomas Arne's Rule Britannia was first performed as an act of defiance by an heir to the throne.
SUN 02:30 Horizon (b0761llv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
MONDAY 09 JULY 2018
MON 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0b9k4gs)
Series 1
09/07/2018
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
MON 19:30 The Pennine Way (b05q1n6y)
Episode 1
Explorer Paul Rose swaps Antarctica and the world's deepest oceans for the Pennine Way - Britain's first national trail, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015.
At 268 miles long, the Pennine Way stretches from the Peak District in Derbyshire to the Scottish Borders. Paul discovers how much has changed along the route in the last half-century - and finds out how the Pennine Way owes its existence to the right-to-roam movement in the 1930s.
Paul hears about ghostly sightings along the trail and also meets actor and director Barrie Rutter to explore the literary roots of the south Pennines.
MON 20:00 Nature's Miracle Orphans (b0717gr8)
Series 2
Monster & Africa
In Costa Rica, Patrick Aryee meets Monster, an orphaned sloth who was found by the roadside alone and scared. Carer Sam is putting her through a boot camp that she's designed, especially for sloths, to see if she has the skills to return to the wild.
In Zimbabwe, Lucy Cooke is meeting precious lion cubs Africa and Alika who have to learn how to hunt like wild lions. And Harriet the serval has to prove to carer Sarah that she's ready for a wilder existence.
MON 21:00 The NHS: A People's History (b0bb2k9h)
Series 1
Episode 2
This episode covers a period in which the NHS expands beyond all recognition as it is forced to evolve and adapt to the needs of an ever-growing, and ever more diverse population, all against a background of social strife and the increasing pressures to privatise. Amongst the highly cherished artefacts shown are the personal letters of Dr Elphis Christopher, a family-planning specialist who received death threats when she dared advocate sex education in schools, the NHS wigs given to Grand National-winning jockey Bob Champion when he underwent a then revolutionary form of chemotherapy for testicular cancer and the pram and teddy bear of Alastair Macdonald, the world's second, and the NHS's first, test-tube baby.
This era of 1973 to 1997 was a time of extreme social change and the NHS was forced to adapt accordingly. Neurosurgeon Alan Crockard reveals a small titanium plate he and his colleagues in Belfast invented at the height of the conflict in Northern Ireland to insert into head wounds, an innovation that in his words 'helped people survive the unsurvivable'. Wendy Watson, the first woman in Britain to have a pre-emptive double mastectomy, shares the handwritten letter she received from Princess Diana, thanking her for her work raising money for breast cancer screening. And mum of two Rosemary Cox shows the brooch her dying son gave her, shortly before his tragic death from a brain tumour became the catalyst for her campaign to create of the UK's Organ Donor Register.
MON 22:00 Storyville (b0b9zrhb)
John Curry: The Ice King
One of the greatest ice skaters of all time, John Curry transformed a dated sport into an art form and made history by becoming the first openly gay Olympian in a time when homosexuality was not fully legal.
Directed by James Erskine, this is a searing documentary about a lost cultural icon - a story of art, sport, sexuality and rebellion. Featuring incredible unseen footage of some of Curry's most remarkable performances and with access to his letters, archive interviews, and interviews with his family, friends and collaborators, this is a portrait of the man who turned ice skating from a dated sport into an exalted art form.
MON 23:25 Patagonia: Earth's Secret Paradise (b06gqsqn)
Life on the Edge
Patagonia invites you into a rarely seen South American wilderness, home to surprising creatures who survive in environments that range from the mighty Andes Mountains to Cape Horn.
This is the story of an awe-inspiring coastline 4,000 miles long. From the cold, fearsome waters of Cape Horn, where brave rockhopper penguins overcome huge challenges to raise their young, to the far north, with huge elephant seals battling for position in the heat of the desert. Orcas ram-raid the beaches, grabbing seal pups to feed their young. People gather the sea's bounty too, but these shores are not for the faint-hearted.
MON 00:25 Genius of the Modern World (b07ht3cd)
Freud
Bettany Hughes travels to Vienna on the trail of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Freud's influence surrounds us. In our vocabulary - repression, penis envy, the Freudian slip - and in the freedom we take for granted, to talk openly about our deepest feelings and insecurities.
A pioneer in the study of the human mind, Freud's psychoanalytic methods addressed emotional issues, seldom even discussed in the 19th century. Talking to his patients inspired his radical understanding of the unconscious mind, as a repository of hidden repressed emotions and irrational primal desires.
MON 01:25 Britain in Focus: A Photographic History (b08k0srb)
Series 1
Episode 3
In the final episode, Eamonn McCabe traces the story of British photography from the explosion of colour images in the late 1950s to the ongoing impact of the digital revolution.
Eamonn enters the colourful Britain of postcard producer John Hinde, whose postwar experiments with colour photography captured a new mood of optimism and leisure in the country. He sees how colour snaps began to replace black-and-white prints in the family album as cheaper cameras and new processing techniques allowed ordinary people to record the world around them in colour. Eamonn meets John Bulmer, who broke new ground by using colour for documentary photography in his striking images of the north of England for the Sunday Times colour magazine. And he finds out why Jane Bown refused to follow the trend by sticking to black and white for her striking portraits of the era's most memorable faces.
Eamonn explores how a new, independent movement in photography emerged in the 1970s, fostering talents like Peter Mitchell, who used colour photography to comment on a changing urban Britain. Eamonn sees how this new movement encouraged Fay Godwin to infuse her poetic landscapes with political and environmental concerns, and meets Birmingham-based photographer Vanley Burke, whose work chronicled the growing African-Caribbean community in Handsworth. And Eamonn joins one of today's best-known British photographers, Martin Parr, to find out how he has trained a satirical eye on modern society.
Assessing the impact of the 'big bang' of digital photography, Eamonn goes back to his roots as a sports photographer - covering boxing in the East End of London. He reflects on how technology has developed from when he started in the 1970s, with manual cameras and rolls of film, to the digital cameras of today. Eamonn then sees how the digital revolution has shaped a new generation of practitioners - in whose hands a thoroughly 21st-century British photography is being created.
MON 02:25 The NHS: A People's History (b0bb2k9h)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018
TUE 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0b9k4hl)
Series 1
10/07/2018
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 The Pennine Way (b05qt6vr)
Episode 2
Explorer Paul Rose's journey along the Pennine Way takes him to the Yorkshire Dales. In 1965, the Pennine Way was launched in the Dales village of Malham. Paul returns to hear from those who remember the opening ceremony. He also dons his climbing gear to have a crack at the limestone cliff face of Malham Cove, gets a front row seat at a sheep mart in Wensleydale and enjoys a well-earned pint in Britain's highest pub.
TUE 20:00 Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets of Orkney (b088pnv1)
Episode 2
Orkney - seven miles off the coast of Scotland, and cut off by the tumultuous Pentland Firth, the fastest-flowing tidal race in Europe is often viewed as being remote. However it is one of the treasure troves of archaeology in Britain, and recent discoveries there are turning the Stone Age map of Britain upside down. Rather than an outpost at the edge of the world, recent finds suggest an extraordinary theory - that Orkney was the cultural capital of our ancient world and the origin of the stone circle cult which culminated in Stonehenge.
In the second of this three-part series, Neil Oliver, Chris Packham, Andy Torbet and Dr Shini Somara join hundreds of archaeologists from around the world who have gathered there to investigate at one of Europe's biggest digs.
Andy and some local seafaring volunteers build a boat made of just willow and cow hide and set out to cross the dangerous Pentland Firth as the ancient Orcadians would have done. Neil investigates the extraordinary discovery of some human bones, Chris goes in search of whales and Shini uncovers the powers of the tides.
TUE 21:00 The Rise and Fall of Nokia Mobile (b0b9kj80)
Once upon a time there was a large Finnish company that manufactured the world's best and most innovative mobile phones. Nokia's annual budget was larger than that of the government of Finland and everyone who worked there shared in the windfall. But global domination cost the company its pioneering spirit and quantity gradually took over from quality, with new phone models being churned out by the dozen. Market share eroded, until in 2016, mobile phone production in Finland ceased.
The Rise and Fall of Nokia is a wry morality tale for our times, told by those that lived and worked through the rollercoaster years in a company that dominated a nation.
TUE 22:00 Africa's Great Civilisations (b0b9tt9y)
Series 1
Clash of Civilisations
The award-winning film-maker and academic Henry Louis Gates Jr travels the length and breadth of Africa to explore the continent's epic history.
In the final part of Africa's Great Civilisations, Henry Louis Gates Jr reviews the 19th century, when a fierce competition for resources and trade stimulated ingenuity but also enticed European powers, triggering the 'scramble for Africa' and inciting conflicts that threatened the stability and wellbeing of the continent.
TUE 23:00 Vienna: Empire, Dynasty and Dream (p046dxfw)
Episode 1
Vienna was the capital of the Habsburg dynasty and home to the Holy Roman Emperors. From here, they dominated middle Europe for nearly 1,000 years. In this series, historian Simon Sebag Montefiore describes how the Habsburgs transformed Vienna into a multinational city of music, culture and ideas. Napoleon, Hitler, Mozart, Strauss, Freud, Stalin and Klimt all played their part.
In this first episode, we follow the Habsburgs' rise to power and discover how Vienna marked Europe's front line in the struggle to defend both Christendom from the Ottomans and the Catholic Church from the Protestant revolutionaries that plotted to destroy it.
TUE 00:00 Immortal? A Horizon Guide to Ageing (b01kxxys)
Is there any way to slow or even prevent the ravages of time? Veteran presenter Johnny Ball looks back over the 45 years that Horizon, and he, have been on air to find out what science has learned about how and why we grow old. Charting developments from macabre early claims of rejuvenation to the latest cutting-edge breakthroughs, Johnny discovers the sense of a personal mission that drives many scientists and asks whether we are really any closer to achieving the dream of immortality.
TUE 01:00 A History of Art in Three Colours (b01lcz2s)
Blue
Dr James Fox explores how, in the hands of artists, the colours gold, blue and white have stirred emotions, changed behaviour and even altered the course of history.
When, in the Middle Ages, the precious blue stone lapis lazuli arrived in Europe from the east, blue became the most exotic and mysterious of colours. And it was artists who used it to offer us tantalising glimpses of other worlds beyond our own.
TUE 02:00 The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers (b09hm1y8)
Series 1
Paradise
Alinka Echeverria reveals the way in which Mexican artists shook off European artistic influence to find a distinctive voice, expressed through landscape painting, and reconnected with pre-Hispanic subject matter. The murals of Teotihuacan and illustrated Aztec codices show how nature was the reference point for their worldview, their power structures and their calendars. But following the conquest in the 16th century, the Spanish 're-educated' indigenous artists to aspire to European aesthetics, and for nearly 300 years after conquest, the art of what was called New Spain looked a lot like the art of old Spain.
A century after independence in 1810, artists began to depict Mexico's ancient foundation myths, including the symbolic volcanoes that dominate the Valley of Mexico. Indigenous people, their land and lives were no longer taboo. Following the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910, landscape paintings established a new style that was resolutely Mexican and confirmed the re-established connections between Mexico's indigenous population and their land. Forces of nature and Mexico's landscape continue to be integral to the Mexican sense of artistic identity.
TUE 03:00 Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets of Orkney (b088pnv1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 11 JULY 2018
WED 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0b9k4l6)
Series 1
11/07/2018
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 The Pennine Way (b05rcysn)
Episode 3
Explorer Paul Rose heads for the North Pennines in the latest stage of his journey along the Pennine Way. He goes white-water rafting down the River Tees and takes in one of Britain's best views at High Cup Nick. Paul also hears about a weather phenomenon unique to the Pennine Way and spends a night at a remote mountain refuge close to the highest point of the Pennine Way.
WED 20:00 Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets of Orkney (b08bgfpg)
Episode 3
Seven miles off the coast of Scotland and cut off by the tumultuous Pentland Firth, the fastest-flowing tidal race in Europe, Orkney is often viewed as being remote. However it is one of the treasure troves of archaeology in Britain, and recent discoveries there are turning the Stone Age map of Britain upside down. Recent finds suggest an extraordinary theory - that rather than an outpost at the edge of the world, Orkney was the cultural capital of our ancient world and the origin of the stone circle cult which culminated in Stonehenge.
In the third of this three-part series, Neil Oliver, Chris Packham, Andy Torbet and Dr Shini Somara join hundreds of archaeologists from around the world who have gathered there to investigate at one of Europe's biggest digs. Andy dives below the waves in search of the inspiration for the first stone circle, Chris and Neil spend the night on an abandoned island as they hunt for clues as to why cultures change, Shini tests the technology behind a Bronze-Age sauna, and the archaeologists uncover a remarkable find.
WED 21:00 Natural World (b055kldq)
2015-2016
Galapagos: Islands of Change
From enormous tortoises and deep-diving lizards to fish-eating snakes and birds that hunt giant venomous centipedes, the wildlife of the world-famous Galapagos Islands is unique and bizarre. This wilderness once inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, but it is currently undergoing a human revolution, with tourism driving a population boom.
David Attenborough narrates this modern-day story of the Galapagos and reveals whether, in this ever-changing world, its animals can still thrive.
WED 22:00 The Battle to Beat Polio (b0445c5d)
Stephanie Flanders, former BBC economics editor, has a very personal interest in the battle to beat polio. Her father, Michael Flanders, one half of the world-famous singing duo of the 50s and 60s, Flanders and Swann, was paralysed by the infection when he was 21. He used a wheelchair for the rest of his life, and died early at 53 through complications caused by the disease. Stephanie was just six.
But the desperate search for a vaccine was far from straightforward. Stephanie discovers that it is the story of decades of battling between good and bad science, celebrity scientists with giant egos, prepared to take enormous risks to be first with a vaccine, and countless innocent victims. By the end, Stephanie realises there might have been a polio vaccine years earlier, and hundreds of thousands might have been spared, including her dad.
WED 23:00 Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein (b097f2gv)
Series 1
Revolution
In the first episode of this fascinating and entertaining series exploring the politics of music, Suzy Klein takes us back to the volatile years following the Russian Revolution and World War I, when music was seen as a tool to change society.
Suzy explores the gender-bending cabarets of 1920s Berlin, smashes a piano in the spirit of the Bolshevik revolution, and discovers that playing a theremin is harder than it looks. She also reveals why one orchestra decided to work without a conductor, uncovers the dark politics behind Mack the Knife and probes the satirical songs which tried to puncture the rise of the Nazis. Finally, she tells the story of the infamous Horst Wessel song, which helped bring Hitler to power.
Suzy's musical stories are richly brought to life with the help of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and its Chorus, as well as wonderful solo performers. This was a golden age for music, and its jazz, popular songs, experimental symphonies and classics like Rachmaninoff all provoke debate - what kind of culture do we want? Is music for the elite or for the people? Was this a new age of liberal freedom to be relished - or were we hurtling towards the apocalypse?
With music's incredible power to bypass our brains and get straight to our hearts, it can at once invoke the very best in us and, Suzy argues, inflame the very worst. Music lovers beware!
WED 00:00 Utopia: In Search of the Dream (b091gx74)
Series 1
Build It and They Will Come
Utopia has been imagined in a thousand different ways. Yet when people try to build utopia, they struggle and very often fail. Art historian professor Richard Clay asks whether utopian visions for living can ever reconcile the tension between the group and the individual, the rules and the desire to break free.
Travelling to America, he encounters experimental communities, searching for greater meaning in life. Richard visits a former Shaker village in New Hampshire and immerses himself for a day at the Twin Oaks eco-commune in Virginia, where residents share everything, even clothes. He looks back at the grand urban plans for the masses of the 20th-century utopian ideologies, from the New Deal housing projects of downtown Chicago to the concrete sprawl of a Soviet-era housing estate in Vilnius, Lithuania. He also meets utopian architects with a continuing faith that humanity's lot can be improved by better design. Interviewees include architect Norman Foster and designer Shoji Sadao.
WED 01:00 The 80s with Dominic Sandbrook (b07pr1b5)
World in Motion
The third and final programme charts the final years of the decade, looking at a society transformed by an accelerated change. Dominic argues that this change brought opportunities and anxieties that we continue to wrestle with to this day, from significant technological advances and the privatisation of national companies, to the deregulation of the stock market and the growing polarisation of rich and poor.
The late 80s saw Britain transformed beyond measure, from the economic 'Big Bang' in the City of London and the rise of the yuppie to more tangible, everyday signs of household change, such as the impact of Europe on British shopping habits - from German cars to French wine, Italian fashion and Scandinavian interior design. But alongside this transformation was a growing disconnection from the political elite, signified by the rise of rave culture and the poll tax riots. Margaret Thatcher - widely seen as the architect of so much of this change - would ultimately become its biggest victim.
WED 02:00 The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers (b09j2vvp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
00:30 on Sunday]
WED 03:00 Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets of Orkney (b08bgfpg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THURSDAY 12 JULY 2018
THU 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0b9k4qc)
Series 1
12/07/2018
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 The Sky at Night (b0b9v3lf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Sunday]
THU 20:00 The First Georgians: The German Kings Who Made Britain (p01xtmv7)
Episode 3
Dr Lucy Worsley's story of the first Georgian kings reaches the final years of George II's reign. With extensive access to artworks in the Royal Collection, she shows how Britain's new ruling family fought the French, the Jacobites and each other, all at the same time. But while George very publicly bickered with his troublesome son Frederick, Prince of Wales, he also led from the front on the battlefield - the last British king to do so - and helped turn his adopted nation into a global superpower.
What would have seemed an unlikely outcome when the Georges first arrived from Hanover was achieved on the back of a strong navy, a dubious slave trade and a powerful new entrepreneurial spirit that owed much to the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment.
THU 21:00 Napoleon (b0600385)
Episode 3
Historian Andrew Roberts charts the fall of Napoleon, a defining moment in global history, which saw him taken to the remote island of St Helena in the Atlantic Ocean in 1815 as a prisoner of the British.
It had taken just a year for the monarchies of Europe, the anti-Napoleonic powers of the world, to destroy him. He trusted the Tsar of Russia - but the Tsar reneged on their deal. He sought revenge by invading Russia in 1812 - but the campaign was a disaster. He sought to defend France against her enemies - but made some grave and ultimately suicidal military misjudgements.
Ever since the revolution had taken place in France in 1789, the monarchist nations of the world were out to destroy Napoleon. At the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, they were granted their ultimate opportunity.
THU 22:00 Who Were the Greeks? (b036b0yl)
Episode 1
Classicist Dr Michael Scott uncovers the strange, alien world of the ancient Greeks, exploring the lives of the people who gave us democracy, architecture, philosophy, language, literature and sport.
Travelling across Greece today, Michael visits ancient cities and battlefields, great ruins and wild countryside, all in his search to uncover how the ancient Greeks thought and lived. What he finds is that ancient Greece was a seething tornado of strange, unsettling and downright outrageous customs and beliefs, inhabited by a people who could be as brutal as they were brilliant.
THU 23:00 Britain's Whale Hunters: The Untold Story (b046w23l)
The Fall
Writer Adam Nicolson continues to explore the forgotten role that British whalers played in Antarctic whaling as late as the 1960s. Granted rare access to the ruins of the whaling stations on the island of South Georgia, he charts the boom and bust of this once multimillion-pound industry. He hears first-hand about the battle between science, politics and profit that brought whales to the brink of extermination just 50 years ago and reveals the astounding role that Britain played in the international whaling industry.
A few hundred years ago, the oceans were home to millions of whales, but then we found that they were incredibly useful: by the 1920s they were even forming an essential part of Britain's fat supply to make soap and margarine. On the remote British Antarctic island of South Georgia, the centre of the industry in the 1920s, Adam explores the incredible ruins of the world's largest whaling station. Abandoned in the 1960s, Leith Harbour is a complete, but now deserted, whaling town. To fully understand how whale populations were so drastically reduced, Adam puts our modern environmental guilt to one side and, with the help of the last of the British whalers and dramatic archive film, sees the industry through the eyes of its own time.
In the mid-1920s, up to 8,000 whales a year were being processed on South Georgia to satisfy Europe's demand for fat. The whalers describe the dangers of using industrial machinery to process whales and Adam explores the hospital that treated the unlucky ones, still stocked with 1950s medicine. Meanwhile, some scientists in Britain were aware of the threat of the industry to whale populations, and a hugely ambitious piece of marine biology - the 'Discovery Investigations' - were launched. Adam visits a legacy of this program, the new ship Discovery, and learns how the original attempted to build an argument for sustainable whaling.
The industry soon found a way to become yet more effective at hunting and processing whales through a revolutionary piece of ship design, which also allowed them to dodge British attempts at regulation. Adam explores the incredible scale of the oil being sent home: by 1933, 37 per cent of the fat in British margarine was from whales. As World War Two approached, Germany and Japan joined the industry, and catches reached a staggering 46,000 whales caught in the Antarctic in one year.
While exploring an abandoned whale-catching ship and taking a peek behind the scenes at the Natural History Museum, Adam examines the tussle between the industry and science. War-ravaged Europe was desperate for fats, and new attempts to regulate the industry proved completely inadequate to protect whale populations. It wasn't until population dynamics experts were included in the 1960s that the industry began to take action to seriously reduce catches. And by then, whale stocks were in a disastrous state, with some species near extinction.
Having discovered so much about the forgotten story of British whaling, Adam attempts to find a balanced view of the industry as a whole - one that killed over 1.6 million whales in the Antarctic. He feels a deep admiration for the great skill and courage of the whalers, but, at the same time, concludes that he hates the whaling itself.
THU 00:00 Deep Down & Dirty: The Science of Soil (b040y925)
For billions of years our planet was devoid of life, but something transformed it into a vibrant, living planet. That something was soil.
It's a much-misunderstood substance, often dismissed as 'dirt', something to be avoided. Yet the crops we eat, the animals we rely on, the very oxygen we breathe, all depend on the existence of the plant life that bursts from the soil every year.
In this film, gardening expert Chris Beardshaw explores where soil comes from, what it's made of and what makes it so essential to life. Using specialist microphotography, he reveals it as we've never seen it before - an intricate microscopic landscape, teeming with strange and wonderful life forms.
It's a world where the chaos of life meets the permanence of rock, the two interacting with each other to make a living system of staggering complexity that sustains all life on Earth.
Chris explores how man is challenging this most precious resource on our planet and how new science is seeking to preserve it.
THU 01:00 The Rise and Fall of Nokia Mobile (b0b9kj80)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
THU 02:00 The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers (b09jj0k0)
Series 1
Prayer
In this final episode, Alinka explores how faith has always driven life in Mexico, and how the need for a visual image created a unique blend of Mesoamerican and Catholic faith.
Artists were kept close to the elites in Mexico's ancient civilisations to depict the deities that were the foundations of the society's structures and beliefs. Gods and goddesses were created in the mind's eye of millions, who in turn worshipped the imagery that the artists provided.
When the Spanish imposed Catholicism, the notion of venerating the divine using iconography already existed. And in some of Mexico's most spectacular art, iconography incorporating both Mesoamerican and Catholic belief can be found. This unique hybridity could only exist in Mexico, where art has long been crucial to the personal relationship between believer and the divine. Ex-votos paintings are offerings of thanks to saints and expressions of devotion. They have long been the preserve of poor and rural Mexicans, and depict very personal situations.
Today, one artist is pushing the boundaries of belief, incorporating symbols of secular culture and consumerism with religious iconography. Even as the power of the church wains in Mexico, religious imagery can still be found everywhere.
THU 03:00 The First Georgians: The German Kings Who Made Britain (p01xtmv7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
FRIDAY 13 JULY 2018
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b0b9k4s6)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (b0bb2ttg)
John Peel and Janice Long present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 2 January 1986. Featuring A-Ha, Paul McCartney, Level 42, Bronski Beat, Sophia George, Shakin' Stevens, Elton John, Jennifer Rush and Sting.
FRI 20:00 Top of the Pops (b08skpzg)
1984 - Big Hits
Celebrating the big hits from a big year in British pop. The big hitters in this compilation are performed by the likes of The Smiths, Duran Duran, Sade, The Weather Girls, Wham! and Bronski Beat, to name a few.
Further stellar appearances come from the TOTP debuts of iconic Americans Madonna, Miami Sound Machine and Cyndi Lauper, who runs riot in the studio.
Frankie Goes to Hollywood celebrate their 1984 chart dominance with one of their celebrated renditions of Two Tribes, while we couldn't let you forget a little ditty from Black Lace - you'll be singing this for days... you have been warned!
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 Smashing Hits! The 80s Pop Map of Britain and Ireland (b0bb2pyf)
Series 1
Episode 2
Two 80s icons explore the distinct sounds that came out of different parts of Britain and Ireland in one of pop's golden decades.
Midge Ure, lead singer of Ultravox and one of the men behind Band Aid, and Kim Appleby, who had a string of hits with her sister Mel in the Stock, Aitken and Waterman-produced band Mel and Kim, go on a journey back in time to the 80s to figure out why certain cities produced their own diverse tunes.
It's a fascinating tale. Emerging from the ashes of punk, British and Irish music ripped up the pop rule book in the 80s and topped the charts worldwide. But there was no definitive 'British' pop sound. Innovative chart-toppers were being produced by artists hailing from all over the UK and Ireland.
In this second episode, Midge and Kim explore the sounds that came from Scotland, Ireland and Wales. They start in Glasgow with the American influences that shaped a substantial part of Scottish music, look at the punk and folk backdrop to Irish music and, finally, delve into the Welsh merger of folk and punk.
The show features evocative archive, superb music and interviews with significant figures, like Bob Geldof, Clare Grogan from Altered Images, Pat Kane from Hue and Cry, Moya Brennan of Clannad and Mike Peters from legendary Welsh band The Alarm.
FRI 23:00 Top of the Pops (b0bb2ttg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
FRI 23:30 The Story of Funk: One Nation Under a Groove (b04t6nm5)
In the 1970s, America was one nation under a groove as an irresistible new style of music took hold of the country - funk. The music burst out of the black community at a time of self-discovery, struggle and social change. Funk reflected all of that. It has produced some of the most famous, eccentric and best-loved acts in the world - James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone, George Clinton's Funkadelic and Parliament, Kool & the Gang and Earth, Wind & Fire.
During the 1970s this fun, futuristic and freaky music changed the streets of America with its outrageous fashion, space-age vision and streetwise slang. But more than that, funk was a celebration of being black, providing a platform for a new philosophy, belief system and lifestyle that was able to unite young black Americans into taking pride in who they were.
Today, like blues and jazz, it is looked on as one of the great American musical cultures, its rhythms and hooks reverberating throughout popular music. Without it hip-hop wouldn't have happened. Dance music would have no groove. This documentary tells that story, exploring the music and artists who created a positive soundtrack at a negative time for African-Americans.
Includes interviews with George Clinton, Sly & the Family Stone, Earth, Wind & Fire, Kool & the Gang, War, Cameo, Ray Parker Jnr and trombonist Fred Wesley.
FRI 00:30 London Songs at the BBC (b01jxzfs)
A collection of performances from the BBC archives, celebrating the sights and sounds and the ups and downs of London through the words and songs through the years - from Petula Clark singing A Foggy Day in London Town in 1965 to Adele performing her love letter to the city in Hometown Glory, filmed in October 2007 on the roof of the BBC car park in Shepherd's Bush. Also featured are the likes of The Jam, Eddy Grant, Tom Paxton and Lily Allen plus many more.
FRI 01:30 Meat Loaf: In and out of Hell (b04xdrrb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 02:35 Top of the Pops (b08skpzg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]