Romantic titans Schumann and Mendelssohn share the night's bill with a pair of phenomenal female composers who died 100 years ago - two talents whose lives were cut tragically short. Schumann's exuberant Fourth Symphony is the climax of this concert, which also includes sparkling work by Lili Boulanger, the first ever female winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome, and the flamboyant Welsh composer Morfydd Owen. Owen's Nocturne is the perfect way for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to mark its 90th anniversary year, and acclaimed French pianist Bertrand Chamayou performs Mendelssohn's First Piano Concerto - all under the baton of Thomas Sondergard.
Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan explores his native Mull and some of the nearby islands, filming otters, deer, puffins, seals and a minke whale.
Archaeologist Richard Miles presents a series charting the history of the breakthroughs and watersheds in our long quest to understand our ancient past. He begins by going back 2,000 years to explore how archaeology began by trying to prove a biblical truth - a quest that soon got archaeologists into dangerous water.
An examination of the sordid machinations involved in becoming president of the United States. Rich Hall looks back at some of the dirtiest and nastiest presidential campaigns of the past, proving that the 2016 race to the White House is not the first time the contest has got personal.
This episode follows the end of Henry's marriage to Katherine of Aragon, made possible by Henry's rejection of Catholicism and the pope, with him setting himself up as head of the Church of England. He marries his second wife, Anne Boleyn, and she gives birth to a baby girl, Elizabeth.
After rumours spread that Anne has been unfaithful to the king, she is arrested and executed, leaving Henry free to marry Jane Seymour. Jane gives birth to a son, Edward, but Henry's joy is overshadowed by grief as Jane dies 12 days later.
Thomas Cromwell has gone down in history as one of the most corrupt and manipulative ruffians ever to hold power in England. A chief minister who used his position to smash the Roman Catholic church in England and loot the monasteries for his own gain. A man who used torture to bring about the execution of the woman who had once been his friend and supporter - Anne Boleyn.
Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor of the history of the church at Oxford University, reveals a very different image of Cromwell. The award-winning novels of Hilary Mantel began the revival of Cromwell's reputation, and now Professor MacCulloch presents Henry VIII's chief minister as a principled and pioneering statesman who was driven by radical evangelism.
Cromwell's extraordinary career blossomed after a childhood marked by poverty and violence. The unschooled son of a brewer, he travelled across Europe as a young man and mysteriously taught himself to speak several languages in addition to accounting and knowledge of the law. When Henry VIII failed to persuade the pope to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Cromwell engineered an incredible solution. Using his political skills he persuaded Parliament and the people to accept a mythological rewriting of the history of England in which the English monarch was as an emperor whose power superseded that of the pope.
Professor MacCulloch describes Cromwell as an evangelical reformer, determined to break the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church and introduce the people of England to a new type of Christianity in which each individual makes direct contact with God.
Dr James Fox takes a journey through six different landscapes across Britain, meeting artists whose work explores our relationship to the natural world. From Andy Goldsworthy's beautiful stone sculptures to James Turrell's extraordinary sky spaces, this is a film about art made out of nature itself. Featuring spectacular images of landscape and art, James travels from the furthest reaches of the Scottish coast and the farmlands of Cumbria to woods of north Wales. In each location he marvels at how artists' interactions with the landscape have created a very different kind of modern art - and make us look again at the world around us.
MONDAY 23 JULY 2018
MON 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0bc6b4y)
Series 1
23/07/2018
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
MON 19:30 Royal Welsh Show (b0bc1x1v)
2018
Episode 1
Kate Humble and Gareth Wyn Jones are joined by Gareth Thomas for highlights from the opening day of the Royal Welsh Show, discovering the best stories from the thousands of visitors and competitors in attendance.
MON 20:00 Nature's Miracle Orphans (b0736p7l)
Series 2
Manji and Mandi
In South Africa, Lucy meets Manji, an orphaned white rhino who nearly died when he and his mother were attacked by poachers for their horns. Carer Petronel is determined to return him to the African savannah but first he must learn how to survive in the wild.
In Costa Rica, Patrick meets Mandi the tapir, an orphan who's a real handful. Surrogate mum Rodolfo wants to introduce Mandi to a family of tapirs that live in his rescue centre, but first she needs to develop her wild side.
MON 21:00 Crossing England in a Punt: River of Dreams (p00y6r6q)
From the Staffordshire hills to the Humber estuary, spirited explorer Tom Fort embarks on a 170-mile journey down Britain's third-longest river, the Trent. Beginning on foot, he soon transfers to his own custom-built punt, the Trent Otter, and rows many miles downstream. Along the way he encounters the power stations that generate much of the nation's electricity, veterans of the catastrophic floods of 1947, the 19th-century brewers of Burton and a Bronze Age boatman who once made a life along the river.
MON 22:00 Storyville (b0bcqwtg)
Insha'Allah Democracy
As Pakistan prepare for their 2018 elections, Insha'Allah Democracy follows film-maker Mo Naqvi during the country's last election, when he was a first-time voter and wanted to back a candidate who would prevent Pakistan from becoming a terrorist state. But Mo faced a tough choice - either vote for religious hardliners or a secular liberal leader who happened to be a former military dictator.
Insha'Allah Democracy chronicles one voter's journey to discover if democracy is possible in an unstable Muslim country, whilst providing a fly-on-the-wall exploration into a controversial leader, Pervez Musharraf.
MON 23:15 Rise of the Continents (b0368kb2)
The Americas
Professor Iain Stewart uncovers clues hidden within the New York skyline, the anatomy of American alligators and inside Bolivian silver mines, to reconstruct how North and South America were created. We call these two continents the New World, and in a geological sense they are indeed new worlds, torn from the heart of an ancient supercontinent - the Old World of Pangaea.
Iain starts in New York, where the layout of the city's skyscrapers provide a link to a long-lost world. Deep within their foundations is evidence that 300 million years ago New York was at the heart of a huge mountain range - part of the vast supercontinent called Pangaea.
Trekking into the Grand Canyon, Iain uncovers a layer of sandstone from Pangaean times that shows there was a vast desert either side of the mountains. Footprints in the rocks of the Grand Canyon reveal that there was only one type of animal that could thrive here - a newly evolved group called the reptiles. Iain meets the closest living relative of those early reptiles - the alligator.
Two hundred million years ago, Pangea underwent a transformation. North and South America were carved from Pangaea, and pushed westwards as separate island continents. To see how this westward movement shaped South America's often bloody human history, Iain travels to Potosi in Bolivia. Cerro Rico is one of the most dangerous mines in human history. Iain goes to the heart of this extinct volcano to reveal the process that has shaped South America - subduction.
Subduction has also created the longest continual mountain range in the world - the Andes. At its heart lies the stunning ethereal landscape of the Salar de Uyuni, a vast salt flat where a lake has been uplifted thousands of metres above sea level. The lithium found here may be a new source of mineral wealth for Bolivia, for use in mobile phones.
The last chapter in the story of the Americas is told through that most typically Andean animal, the llama. But like much of South America's wildlife it originated in North America, and only came south when the two island continents of North and South America joined three million years ago.
Since that momentous joining the story of the Americas has been a shared one. Together they continue their westward drift away from the Old World. However, on a cultural and economic level you could argue that the opposite is the case. In our new global economy the Americas are at the very heart of our connected world.
MON 00:15 Rise of the Continents (b036ks6f)
Eurasia
Two hundred million years ago the continent we know as Eurasia - the vast swathe of land that extends from Europe in the west to Asia in the east - didn't exist.
To reveal Eurasia's origins, Professor Iain Stewart climbs up to the 'eternal flames' of Mount Chimera in southern Turkey, blazing natural gas that seeps out of the rock. Formed on the seafloor, it shows that where the south of Eurasia is today, there was once a 90-million-square-kilometre ocean known as the Tethys. It is the destruction of the Tethys Ocean that holds the key to Eurasia's formation.
In the backwaters of Kerala in southern India, he finds evidence of how that happened, in the most unlikely of places: the bones of the local fishermen's catch. The freshwater fish called karimeen shares anatomical features with another group of fish that live in Madagascar, evidence that India and Madagascar were joined. India was once 4,000 kilometres south of its current position on the other side of the Tethys.
As it moved north, the ocean in front of it closed. And as it collided with the rest of Eurasia the impact built the Himalayas, the greatest mountain range on Earth. Professor Stewart reveals how the mountains aren't simply pieces of the land pushed upwards. In fact the rock that forms them was once the floor of the Tethys Ocean.
As Eurasia assembled, Arabia, Greece and Italy too moved north, completing the continent we know today and creating a mountain chain that spans the continent. And it was in the shadow of these mountains that the continent's first civilisations rose.
But the formation of Eurasia is just the beginning, because the process that formed it is still active today. On the island of Stromboli, Italy's most continually active volcano, the spectacular eruptions show that the ocean floor is being pulled beneath Eurasia. It is this process that closed the Tethys, and today is closing the Mediterranean, revealing Eurasia's future. 250 million years in the future all of the continents will collide together once more, forming a new Pangea, with Eurasia at its heart.
MON 01:15 Natural World (b01nhwyz)
2012-2013
Queen of Tigers
The story of Machli, the most famous tiger in the world. She is a legendary fighter and a wise mother of nine cubs who has founded a vast dynasty of tigers.
She is now in the last season of her life and wildlife cameraman Colin Stafford-Johnson returns to find his old friend one last time. This film shows the extraordinary milestones in Machli's life, all set in the most stunning Indian scenery.
MON 02:15 Crossing England in a Punt: River of Dreams (p00y6r6q)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUESDAY 24 JULY 2018
TUE 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0bc6b59)
Series 1
24/07/2018
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 Royal Welsh Show (b0bc1x8c)
2018
Episode 2
On day two of The Royal Welsh Show, Kate Humble marks the 100th anniversary of the RAF by joining a parachute display team. Gareth Wyn Jones and gardener Danny Clarke keep their feet on the ground by exploring the show.
TUE 20:00 Andrew Marr's History of the World (p00xnr47)
Original Series
Survival
Andrew Marr sets off on an epic journey through 70,000 years of human history. Using dramatic reconstructions, documentary filming around the world and cutting-edge computer graphics, he reveals the decisive moments that shaped the world we live in today, telling stories we thought we knew and others we were never told.
Starting with our earliest beginnings in Africa, Marr traces the story of our nomadic ancestors as they spread out around the world and settled down to become the first farmers and townspeople. He uncovers extraordinary handprints left in European caves nearly 30,000 years ago and shows how human ingenuity led to inventions which are still with us today. He also discovers how the first civilisations were driven to extremes to try to overcome the forces of nature, adapting and surviving against the odds, and reveals how everyday life in ancient Egypt had more in common with today's soap operas than might be imagined.
TUE 21:00 Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema (b0bc6f86)
Series 1
The Heist
Mark Kermode continues his fresh and very personal look at the art of cinema by examining the techniques and conventions behind classic film genres, uncovering the ingredients that keep audiences coming back for more.
Tonight it’s the turn of the Heist movie, with its unique combination of suspense and action. Whether it’s the big bank job or netting a fortune in diamonds, why, asks Mark, do otherwise law-abiding audiences find themselves rooting for robbers and even killers? More than any other genre, the Heist movie plays with our sympathies, encouraging us to identify with characters we’d run a mile from in real life.
From The Asphalt Jungle to Ocean’s Eleven by way of The Italian Job and even The Wrong Trousers, Mark shows how recurring character types, such as the Mastermind, and sequences like the Planning scene and the Getaway, draw us in to the big score. And he demonstrates how recent hits like Inception, The Wolf of Wall Street and Baby Driver have pushed the conventions of the Heist in thrilling new directions. At the box office, at least, crime really does pay.
TUE 22:00 The Lavender Hill Mob (b01gklz6)
One of the most famous of the 1950s Ealing comedies. An unassuming bank clerk, in charge of gold bullion deliveries for almost 20 years, hatches a plot to steal a consignment.
His plan comes to fruition when a lodger who owns a small foundry making Eiffel Tower paperweights arrives at his digs.
TUE 23:20 Cardinal (b08bphs2)
Series 1
Cardinal
Demoted for a hunch about a case that he wouldn't let go, Cardinal is brought back to the homicide unit when the body of missing 13-year-old Katie Pine is discovered, proving his instincts correct. Back on the case, his search for her murderer soon becomes an all-consuming race to stay ahead of a serial killer.
TUE 00:00 Cardinal (b08cfgps)
Series 1
Delorme
The Algonquin Bay Police Department attempts to make amends with the community for the botched investigation into Katie Pine's disappearance. Detective Lise Delorme risks exposure of her investigation in an attempt to catch Detective John Cardinal in the act of a crime. Meanwhile, the killer zeroes in on his next victim.
TUE 00:45 Vienna: Empire, Dynasty and Dream (b08651j3)
Episode 3
In the final episode, Simon Sebag Montefiore follows the Habsburgs to their dramatic demise. From his struggles with Napoleon III and Bismarck and the suicide of his son Rudolf, to the assassination of his beautiful wife Sisi, Emperor Franz Josef's empire and his family proved impossible to control.
But while the Habsburgs headed for extinction, Vienna blossomed. As the theories of Freud and the sensuality of the secession artists like Klimt and Schiele ushered in the modern age, Hitler and Stalin stalked her streets. It was here that World War I was sparked; it was here where World War II was dreamed.
TUE 01:45 Storyville (b00srf2g)
Sync or Swim
When Welsh film-maker Dylan Williams followed his lover to Stockholm, the first thing his language teacher told him was that the way to fit into Swedish society was to join a club. Struggling to find work, approaching 40 and looking for a new purpose in life, he took her at her word. The club he found was Stockholm Arts Swim Gents, Sweden's only male synchronised swimming team, a ramshackle collection of men who were each looking for 'something different'. They found it.
What ensues is an unexpected rollercoaster ride that ends at the unofficial world championships. By turns funny and moving, the film shows that happiness can be found in the strangest of places.
TUE 02:45 Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema (b0bc6f86)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 25 JULY 2018
WED 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0bc6b60)
Series 1
25/07/2018
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 Royal Welsh Show (b0bc1zhj)
2018
Episode 3
Kate Humble and Gareth Wyn Jones are joined by Josie d'Arby for the third day of the Royal Welsh Show. It's championship day for the very best Welsh cobs, sheep and pigs.
WED 20:00 1066: A Year to Conquer England (b08h7zsb)
Series 1
Episode 1
In this three-part drama documentary series, Dan Snow explores the political intrigues and family betrayals between Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and Normans that led to war and the Battle of Hastings.
When King Edward the Confessor dies without an heir, it triggers a bitter race to succeed him as King of England. Earl Harold is on the spot and takes the crown. But in Normandy, Duke William believes the throne has been promised to him and decides to invade. Meanwhile, in Norway, the Viking king Harald Hardrada also fancies himself as King of England, and he too puts together an invasion force. Very soon, England will be under attack.
WED 21:00 Paul O'Grady's Working Britain (b038xk4n)
Home
In this second episode Paul O'Grady finds out how our lives outside of work brought us together and sometimes tore us apart. Along the way Paul finds out exactly where his own working values were formed, not to mention those of archetypal working-class lass Lily Savage!
WED 22:00 Sword, Musket & Machine Gun: Britain's Armed History (b0888mjv)
The Big Bang
Dr Sam Willis charts the impact of gunpowder on the battlefield, from cannons to the first handheld weapons.
His journey starts in the 13th century with Oxford scientist and monk Roger Bacon, believed to be the first Englishman to write down a recipe for gunpowder. Sam sees one of the largest surviving medieval cannons still in existence - Mons Meg in Edinburgh Castle. He examines a primitive 1400s 'handgonne' in the Tower of London Armouries that seems more like a mini cannon, with no trigger.
Sam tells the story of the Earl of Moray James Stewart who was regent of Scotland having ejected Mary Queen of Scots from the throne in 1570.
Sam next tells the story of the gunpowder plot. He includes lesser-known details of the 1605 attempted attack. For example, Guy Fawkes was discovered not just once but twice. Also the amount of gunpowder is thought to have been far more than was required. Another strange side to gunpowder's story is revealed - the saltpetre men. Gunpowder requires three ingredients - charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre. In the 17th century chemistry was primitive. Saltpetre or potassium nitrate forms from animal urine and the saltpetre men would collect soil where animals had urinated. This meant they dug up dovecots, stables and even people's homes. They had sweeping powers to come onto people's property and take their soil. They abused these heavily and one of the grievances against King Charles I was the heavy handedness of the saltpetre men.
Eventually, the conflict with the king would turn into the English Civil War. A key weapon is this war was the musket. It was so basic blacksmiths could churn it out by the dozen. Sam fires one with the help of expert gunsmith Robert Tilney. He shows both the musket's power and the lack of accuracy. Muskets were inaccurate but the tactic used was to wait until opponents were very close and then fire one huge volley. Sam shows that the musket would then be used as a heavy club.
Gunpowder weapons gave different injuries to swords and arrows. This led to changes in battlefield surgery, and one who was a key influence was surgeon Richard Wiseman. Sam shows that Wiseman had learnt that any cloth or fragment left from a bullet wound could cause infection and kill the patient.
Finally, Sam travels to Saint Malo in France to tell the story of a frightening attack by the British. In 1693, France and Britain were at war and French pirates had been attacking English ships. Captain John Benbow was asked to launch an attack using a ship crammed with gunpowder. Benbow put 20,000 pounds of gunpowder into the ship as well as many other inflammable ingredients - pitch, straw, sulphur, mortars and grenades. He planned to put this 'Infernal', as it was known, right next to the harbour walls of Saint Malo. But as the ship came near it struck a rock and held fast, within a pistol shot of the town. Then the ship exploded. The sound was heard 100 miles away yet a witness claimed 'no life was lost except a cat in a gutter.' The explosion was 'terrible beyond description' and it shows how far the English were prepared to go in the name of national security.
WED 23:00 Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein (b099229f)
Series 1
World War
Suzy explores the use, abuse and manipulation of music in the Second World War - from swinging jazz to film soundtracks and from mushy ballads to madcap ballets. The war, she demonstrates, wasn't just a military fight but an ideological battle where both sides used music as a weapon to secure their vision for civilisation.
Suzy reveals how the forces' sweetheart Vera Lynn was taken off air by the BBC's 'Dance Music Policy Committee' for fear her sentimental songs undermined the British war effort. But in Nazi Germany, screen siren Zarah Leander had a hit with a song remarkably like Vera's We'll Meet Again. Meanwhile Nazi band Charlie and his Orchestra reworked Cole Porter classics by adding anti-British lyrics to weaken her morale. Though the Nazis banned jazz at home as 'degenerate', Suzy also explores Occupied Paris's incredible jazz scene. And the film revisits concerts given under extraordinary conditions - not least the performance of Wagner's Gotterdammerung' (Twilight of the Gods), which in April 1945 brought the curtain down on the Third Reich.
Despite Hitler's taunt that Britain was 'Das Land ohne Musik' ('The Land without Music'), Suzy reveals the war work of two great British composers. William Walton's Spitfire Prelude became the archetype for a particularly British form of patriotic music. By contrast Michael Tippett was sent to prison for being a conscientious objector, but his anti-war oratorio A Child of Our Time was showcased at the Royal Albert Hall. The right of people to freely express themselves was, after all, what we were fighting for.
For some, music was a way of transcending desperate circumstances. Suzy examines Olivier Messiaen's haunting Quartet for the End of Time, written amid the desolation of a POW camp. But at Auschwitz, Suzy reveals how music was co-opted to serve the Nazis' evil purposes. Cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch explains how musical ability saved her from the gas chambers. Drafted into the Auschwitz Women's Orchestra, she had to play marches to drive prisoners to and from work and to give a private performance of Schumann's exquisitely innocent Traumerei to the infamous Dr Mengele.
The events of the 20th century show, Suzy concludes, that though we should continue to love and celebrate music, we should also be wary of its seductive power.
WED 00:00 Cardinal (b08d9p35)
Series 1
Edie and Eric
Concerned that Cardinal is on to her, Delorme digs into the reasons behind her secret investigation. Meanwhile a dangerous, sadistic couple are roaming the streets for a victim.
WED 00:40 Cardinal (b08f2zkr)
Series 1
Woody
Woody Baldwin, a small-time thief, gets caught in the centre of Eric and Edie's sadistic world when he breaks into their basement dungeon and finds Keith. Meanwhile, Cardinal and Delorme's personal issues threaten their new partnership and Cardinal takes big risks in the investigation that put him at odds with Dyson.
WED 01:25 1066: A Year to Conquer England (b08h7zsb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WED 02:25 Paul O'Grady's Working Britain (b038xk4n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 26 JULY 2018
THU 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0bc6b70)
Series 1
26/07/2018
Katty Kay in Washington and Christian Fraser in London report on the events that are shaping the world.
THU 19:30 Royal Welsh Show (b0bc20zb)
2018
Episode 4
It's the final day of the Royal Welsh Show and the non-stop action continues with Kate Humble and Gareth Wyn Jones. They meet prize-chasing creatures great and small, from shire horses to giant snails.
THU 20:00 Australia with Simon Reeve (b01y0fx9)
Episode 1
Simon's adventure starts in the magnificent 'red centre' of the continent and continues onwards through south Australia, via the extraordinary Indian Pacific railway until Simon reaches the west coast city of Perth.
On the way, he joins an Aussie rancher in the parched outback and takes part in a spectacular camel round-up. This mad adventure, involving specially adapted off-road vehicles and a chopper, is part of an ongoing effort to stop the damaging spread of up to a million feral camels across the country.
Simon also passes through Australia's wine country and to the lucrative tuna-fishing city of Port Lincoln, and he investigates the impact these trades are having on the environment. In Western Australia, he joins a 21st-century gold rush - part of the resource boom that has made Australia one of the richest countries in the world.
Finally in Perth, Simon discovers a full-scale British invasion. Working in a mine or driving a lorry can bring a salary of £100,000 a year, as evidenced when Simon meets a former binman from Hull who is now living the dream, with a beautiful house in the sun, private pool and his very own boat.
THU 21:00 Size Matters (b0bcv22w)
Series 1
That Shrinking Feeling
This two-part special presented by Hannah Fry shows that when it comes to the universe, size really does matter. Hannah takes the audience into a thought experiment where the size of everything can be changed to reveal why things are the size they are.
Having discovered in the first episode that making things bigger ends in disaster, in episode two, Hannah is going the other way by asking whether everything could, in fact, be smaller. But going smaller turns out not to be much safer...
First, we shrink the Earth to half its size - it starts well with lower gravity enabling us to do incredible acrobatics, but things gradually turn nasty as everyone gets altitude sickness - even at sea level. Then we visit Professor Daniel Lathrop's incredible laboratory, where he has built a model Earth that allows us to investigate the other effects of shrinking the planet to half size. The results aren't good - with a weaker magnetic field we would lose our atmosphere and eventually become a barren, lifeless rock like Mars.
In our next thought experiment, we shrink people to find out what life is like if you are just 5mm tall. We find out why small creatures have superpowers that seem to defy the laws of physics, meet Jyoti Amge, the world's smallest woman, and with the help of Dr Diana Van Heemst and thousands of baseball players reveal why short people have longer lives.
Lastly, the Sun gets as small as a sun can be. We visit the fusion reactor at the Joint European Torus to find out why stars have to be a minimum size or fusion won't happen. And if our Sun were that small? Plants would turn from green to black, and Earth would probably resemble a giant, frozen eyeball.
Which all goes to show that size really does matter.
THU 22:00 In Search of Science (b03bjpcy)
Frankenstein's Monsters
Professor Brian Cox guides viewers through 350 years of British science to reveal what science really is, who the people are who practise it, and how it is inextricably linked to the past, present and future of each and every one of us.
In the first part, Professor Cox grapples with science's darker side, asking why, when science has done so much for us, it often gets such a bad press. Starting with the original Frankenstein - the grisly 19th-century tale of George Foster's hanging and subsequent 'electrocution', Brian confronts the idea that science can go 'too far'. From the nuclear bomb to genetic modification, British science has always been at the cutting edge of discovery, but are British scientists feckless meddlers, or misunderstood visionaries whose gifts to humanity are corrupted by the unscrupulous?
THU 23:00 The Great British Year (p01dfksf)
Original Series
Spring
Spring marks the start of an epic race for life where timing is everything; trees explode with blossom and mornings fill with the magical chorus of birdsong. Long-tailed tits frantically build nests whilst, in our oceans, seahorses sway to a graceful courtship dance.
As we celebrate Easter, a stoat mother hunts the young rabbits to feed her own playful young. As spring becomes summer, guillemot chicks leap from their cliffs to begin life at sea, and this year's young prepare for life alone.
THU 00:00 Cardinal (b08ftdw6)
Series 1
Keith
When Woody Baldwin's body is found hastily disposed of, Cardinal and Delorme are able to connect it to Eric Fraser, and Eric to Katie Pine and Todd Curry. They know they have their killer - now it's a mad dash to find him before he murders Keith. Meanwhile, Cardinal meets his daughter Kelly when she makes a surprise trip home to visit her mother Catherine - but where is she?
THU 00:40 Cardinal (b08glcy9)
Series 1
Catherine
Cardinal wonders if he and Delorme are still missing a piece of the puzzle. He digs deeper and goes to the pharmacy where Edie works and finds something very disturbing. Delorme concludes her investigation of Cardinal and it's not good.
THU 01:25 Australia with Simon Reeve (b01y0fx9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THU 02:25 Size Matters (b0bcv22w)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 27 JULY 2018
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b0bc6b7n)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 BBC Proms (b0bch2t8)
2018
English Elegy
Three of the most loved English composers, Hubert Parry, Gustav Holst and Vaughan Williams, reflect on a country transformed by war at the beginning of the 20th century.
Parry, best known for his setting of national favourite Jerusalem, is celebrated with Symphony No 5, a work full of hope that paints a picture of England before the outbreak of the First World War. This peaceful idyll of England is echoed by another of the UK's most popular works, Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending, featuring American violinist Tai Murray.
The second half of the evening evokes the shattering effect of the outbreak of the war - Holst's Ode to Death and Vaughan Williams's Pastoral Symphony reflect both composers' experiences of the horrors of the First World War.
The BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales are conducted by Martyn Brabbins. Petroc Trelawny presents.
FRI 21:40 Top of the Pops (b0bcvl31)
A look back at the year's TOTP, introduced by Tony Blackburn, first shown on 27 December 1971. Featuring T. Rex, The Tams, Slade, The Rolling Stones, and Rod Stewart and The Faces.
FRI 22:05 Mick Jagger - Whistle Test Special: It's Only Rock and Roll (b0bcmmvl)
David Hepworth interviews Mick Jagger about his career with The Rolling Stones and his solo work. Includes film clips and videos spanning Jagger's career.
FRI 23:05 BBC Proms (b0bcmbws)
2018
Pioneers of Sound
Groundbreaking British composer Anna Meredith presents this special Proms tribute to the godmothers of electronica, the pioneers of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The celebration kicks off with music by Delia Derbyshire - most famously remembered for bringing the world the Doctor Who theme in its full electronic glory - and finishes with the premiere of Daphne Oram's revolutionary Still Point, lovingly pieced together from recently discovered archive material and performed by Shiva Feshareki on turntables. Music by artists including Laurie Spiegel, CHAINES and Suzanne Ciani, performed by the London Contemporary Orchestra under conductor Robert Ames, emphasises the power of this legacy.
FRI 00:30 The Rolling Stones at the BBC (b01p1pmf)
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Rolling Stones we delve into the BBC vaults to deliver some timeless Stones archive. From the early days of their career and some unforgettable performances on Top of the Pops with the Last Time, Let's Spend the Night Together and Get Off of My Cloud through the late 60s and early 70s era of prolific song writing when the band were knocking out a classic album every other year and offering up such classics as Honky Tonk Women and Gimme Shelter.
The late 70s brought a massively successful nod to disco with Miss You and the early 80s a stomping return to form with the rock 'n' roll groove of Start Me Up. Peppered amongst the performances are snippets of wisdom from the two main men - the Glimmer Twins, aka Mick and Keith. Plus as a special treat, some lost footage of the band performing 19th Nervous Breakdown on Top of the Pops in 1966 - recently discovered in a BBC documentary from the 1960s about women with depression.
FRI 01:15 Northern Soul: Living for the Weekend (b04bf1lf)
The northern soul phenomenon was the most exciting underground British club movement of the 70s. At its high point, thousands of disenchanted white working class youths across the north of England danced to obscure, mid-60s Motown-inspired sounds until the sun rose. A dynamic culture of fashions, dance moves, vinyl obsession and much more grew up around this - all fuelled by the love of rare black American soul music with an express-train beat.
Through vivid first-hand accounts and rare archive footage, this film charts northern soul's dramatic rise, fall and rebirth. It reveals the scene's roots in the mod culture of the 60s and how key clubs like Manchester's Twisted Wheel and Sheffield's Mojo helped create the prototype that would blossom in the next decade.
By the early 70s a new generation of youngsters in the north were transforming the old ballrooms and dancehalls of their parents' generation into citadels of the northern soul experience, creating a genuine alternative to mainstream British pop culture. This was decades before the internet, when people had to travel great distances to enjoy the music they felt so passionate about.
Set against a rich cultural and social backdrop, the film shows how the euphoria and release that northern soul gave these clubbers provided an escape from the bleak reality of their daily lives during the turbulent 70s. After thriving in almost total isolation from the rest of the UK, northern soul was commercialised and broke nationwide in the second half of the 70s. But just as this happened, the once-healthy rivalry between the clubs in the north fell apart amidst bitter in-fighting over the direction the scene should go.
Today, northern soul is more popular than ever, but it was back in the 70s that one of the most fascinating and unique British club cultures rose to glory. Contributors include key northern soul DJs like Richard Searling, Ian Levine, Colin Curtis and Kev Roberts alongside Lisa Stansfield, Norman Jay, Pete Waterman, Marc Almond, Peter Stringfellow and others.
FRI 02:15 Mick Jagger - Whistle Test Special: It's Only Rock and Roll (b0bcmmvl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:05 today]
FRI 03:15 Top of the Pops (b0bcvl31)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:40 today]