SATURDAY 29 SEPTEMBER 2018

SAT 19:00 Monkey Planet (p01s0yd4)
Meet the Family

Our primate family is incredibly varied and surprising. From the ninja tarsier, a spring-loaded ambush predator the size of a tennis ball, to the magnificent herds of geladas in the mountains of Ethiopia, primates have adapted to environments across the planet.

In this episode, Dr George McGavin gets up close and personal with Siswi, an orangutan who uses soap to improve her personal hygiene. He strips off to experience the mind-numbing cold of the Japanese Alps and heads 100 metres underground to a secluded monkey dormitory.

Then there are baboons with a thirst for flamingo flesh, macaques with criminal minds, fluorescent mandrills who wear war paint to do battle, and Ardry, a real-life gremlin who sees the unseeable with her extraterrestrial fingers.

SAT 20:00 Big Cats (b09p26p3)
Series 1

Episode 2

The secret lives of the worlds most mysterious cats are brought to light by advances in remote and low-light filming technology. In South Africa, we follow the nocturnal pursuits of the tiny black-footed cat that stakes its claim to the title of the world's deadliest, and in remotest Mongolia, we reveal the rarely seen Pallas's cat, at home with her kittens - she hunts by looking like a rock. Finally, in South Africa, we uncover the secret of the serval that thrives amongst the futuristic landscape of Africa's biggest industrial complex. These are remarkable cats, with surprising lives in extraordinary places.

SAT 21:00 Mystery Road (b0bm6nfl)
Series 1

Chasing Ghosts

Jay and Emma's quest for the missing young men uncovers a drug connection, and pressure mounts on long-suffering Shevorne to reveal what she knows.

SAT 21:50 Mystery Road (b0bm6p1z)
Series 1

Silence

Fresh questions arise after the revelation of Marley's fate. Jay's temper frays, and he tries to strong-arm the truth from the new chief suspect, alarming Emma.

SAT 22:40 Inside No. 9 (b03tvm9q)
Series 1

Sardines

A season of comedies by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, each one oozing with dark humour and unexpected twists.

It is the day of Rebecca and Jeremy's engagement party, and everyone (well, nearly everyone) has turned up to the old house to wish them well. Except that one of the bedrooms, the one with all the old baggage in it, has been left unlocked...

SAT 23:10 Inside No. 9 (b03vkx2t)
Series 1

A Quiet Night In

A season of comedies by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, each one oozing with dark humour and unexpected twists.

Gerald owns a beautiful house with lots of beautiful things in it. Beautiful things that are also extremely valuable. The kind of things that might just become the target of an audacious criminal enterprise.

SAT 23:40 Top of the Pops (b0blhsnc)
Janice Long and John Peel present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 08 May 1986. Featuring Patti La Belle and Michael McDonald, Spitting Image, Billy Ocean, Falco, and Whitney Houston.

SAT 00:10 Top of the Pops (b0blht78)
Gary Davies and Peter Powell present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 22 May 1986. Featuring Jaki Graham, Billy Ocean, Simply Red, Spitting Image, The B52's, Patti La Belle and Michael McDonald, The Matchroom Mob and Chas & Dave.

SAT 00:40 Roots, Reggae, Rebellion (b0824dd7)
In the 1970s, Jamaica came alive to the sounds of roots reggae. British rapper, poet and political commentator Akala tells the story of this golden period in the island's musical history, a time when a small group of musicians took songs of Rastafari, revolution and hope to the international stage.

Growing up in London, Akala's family immersed him in roots reggae from an early age so he has a very personal connection to the culture. It has informed his own songwriting, poetry and political worldview, but it's an upbringing that he now feels he's taken for granted.

In this documentary, Akala sets out to find out more about the music that has had such an impact on his life. He begins by exploring the music's origins in Jamaica, where it offered hope to ordinary people at a time when poverty, political violence and turmoil were ravaging the island. Artists like Bob Marley, Big Youth and Burning Spear began to write about suffering and salvation through Rastafari in their songs. Akala unpicks how all of this evolved.

Back in the UK, Akala reveals how the Jamaican artists and our own British roots reggae bands like Steel Pulse became a cultural lifeline for young black people who were experiencing racism and rejection in their own country. He shows how roots reggae also related to a wider audience, its revolutionary message connecting with an increasingly marginalised UK youth.

SAT 01:40 Monkey Planet (p01s0yd4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]

SAT 02:40 Big Cats (b09p26p3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

SUNDAY 30 SEPTEMBER 2018

SUN 19:00 Engineering Giants (b01l1w71)
Jumbo Jet Strip-Down

Engineer turned comedian Tom Wrigglesworth and rising star of mechanical engineering Rob Bell climb on board Victor X-ray, a 200-ton, £200 million Boeing 747. This jumbo jet has flown over 36 million miles in its 14-year life with British Airways. Now it will be broken into tens of thousands of parts in the airline's maintenance hangar in Cardiff, before being painstakingly reassembled and certified fit to fly again. This is the first time this complex process has ever been filmed and it provides fascinating insights into just how a 747 works.

Rob and Tom also visit the UK's largest plane salvage centre in the Cotswolds to discover what happens to a 747 when it reaches the end of its working life, and discover how valuable parts are stripped for resale before the carcass is torn apart to be recycled.

SUN 20:00 James May's Cars of the People (b04g1dvt)
Series 1

Episode 3

This episode is all about power and glory as James reveals the cars that finally gave the people hope. From the Rolls Royce that became a people's champion to the blue-collar heroes that launched a thousand burn ups, James reveals how aspiration and new wealth would drive the development of some of the greatest cars ever made.

James tries to make sense of the baffling world of company car hierarchy with a travelling salesman race-off, and indulges his 1980s urges with the twin delights of Lamborghini and Porsche. He also unveils his choice of the ultimate people's car - a car that can claim to be the greatest vehicle in history.

SUN 21:00 Farther and Sun: A Dyslexic Road Trip (b0bm6pdg)
Could dyslexia be a gift? Or can it only ever be a disability? Documentary maker Richard Macer sets off on a road trip with his dyslexic son Arthur to find the answer. En route, they meet Richard Branson and Eddie Izzard, and many other successful dyslexic people.

Dyslexia is a difficulty with reading and writing that affects one in ten people. It causes misery to many schoolchildren, and it can lead to greater problems later in life. Fifty per cent of prisoners are thought to be dyslexic, but at the same time, many successful people are also dyslexic, and businesses like Google, Nasa and GCHQ see the benefit in a neuro-diverse workforce. Richard and Arthur are looking for an answer to this conundrum and interview academics, scientists and designers.

But there is a personal narrative too. Richard struggled at school just like his son, and now 40 years on, he is assessed for dyslexia. Will the result give him closure on a lifetime of feeling different? And if he is dyslexic, does that mean his son has inherited a gift or a curse?

SUN 22:00 Feud: Bette and Joan (p05lgl4b)
Series 1

Pilot

In 1962, Hollywood legend Joan Crawford realises that good roles are not being written for women of her age, so she decides to find one for herself. Coming across the novel What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? by Henry Farrell, she knows that she has found the perfect part. She convinces director Robert Aldrich to champion the movie, but now she needs to bring her bitter Hollywood rival and star of equal magnitude, Bette Davis, on board the project. Sparks are about to fly.

SUN 22:55 Feud: Bette and Joan (p05ll0j1)
Series 1

The Other Woman

Filming has started on What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Joan and Bette agree on at least one thing - that the very pretty young actress cast as the neighbour will have to go.

Jack Warner is delighted with the daily rushes and encourages director Robert Aldrich to add fuel to the actresses' feud to enhance their on-screen performances.

SUN 23:45 The Last Explorers (b018c57k)
Thomas Blake Glover

Neil Oliver travels to Japan to uncover the extraordinary story of Thomas Blake Glover. Blending adventure with commerce, Glover was a rogue trader who helped rebel samurai clans overthrow the shogun and lay the foundations for one of the most aggressive and powerful economies in the world.

SUN 00:45 Treasures of Ancient Greece (b05qqgrr)
The Classical Revolution

Alastair Sooke unpicks the reasons behind the dazzling revolution that gave birth to classical Greek art, asking how the Greeks got so good so quickly. He travels to the beautiful Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, and to the island of Mozia to see the astonishing charioteer found there in 1979, and marvels at the athletic bodies of the warriors dragged from the seabed - the Riace Bronzes.

It was a creative explosion that covered architecture, sculpting in marble, casting in bronze, even painting on vases. Perhaps the most powerful factor was also its greatest legacy - a fascination with the naked human body.

SUN 01:45 Pappano's Classical Voices (b0638jby)
Baritone and Bass

Series in which conductor Sir Antonio Pappano explores the great roles and the greatest singers of the last hundred years through the prism of the main classical voice types - soprano, tenor, mezzo-soprano, baritone and bass. Through discussion, demonstrations and workshops, Pappano explores every aspect of the art of great singing.

Gods, demons, drunks, lechers, silly old codgers, double-dyed villains - life on stage for the bass is rarely dull. The baritone, meanwhile, is the most common male voice type, and yet the parts he sings - especially in the operas of Verdi - are anything but.

Pappano explores the lowest male voice types, and the roles they play, in comedy as well as tragedy. How do basses sing so low? What different qualities does a baritone bring to a Schubert song? He meets the Russian 'oktavists', who sing a whole octave lower than the standard bass. With the help of leading practitioners - Bryn Terfel, John Tomlinson, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Christian Gerhaher, Alessandro Corbelli and Willard White - Pappano uncovers the tricks of the trade. He examines in detail some key performances from the legendary basses and baritones of the past - Feodor Chaliapin, Tito Gobbi, Paul Robeson, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Boris Christoff , Nicolai Ghiaurov and Ezio Pinza.

SUN 02:45 James May's Cars of the People (b04g1dvt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

MONDAY 01 OCTOBER 2018

MON 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0bltjsf)
Series 1

01/10/2018

Katty Kay in Washington and Christian Fraser in London report on the events that are shaping the world.

MON 19:30 Handmade in the Pacific (b0bm6pjv)
Series 1

Kapa

Indigenous Hawaiian artist Dalani Tanahy spends weeks painstakingly beating tree bark into a sheets of cloth-like fabric. This ancient Hawaiian artform known as 'kapa' was once the staple material of the islands. But after Captain Cook introduced cotton, and the Americans overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy, kapa-making completely disappeared.

Dalani is one of a handful of dedicated practitioners who has spent her life bringing this artform back. Why? Because kapa-making has become integral to the nascent Hawaiian cultural nationalism that is taking hold in indigenous communities of Hawaii. Kapa-making has become a powerful source of pride and identity, but it's a lot of work. Trees have to be planted and tended, cut, stripped, and the bark beaten and fermented. Then sheets of bark are joined together to make a single sheet. Natural dyes and paints are printed on. And only then is the kapa ready to be worn.

Dalani takes us through the process of making a piece of kapa from start to finish, and delivers her kapa to a dancer, who plans to use this kapa as a traditional 'hula' skirt.

The film ends with an emotional performance at the Royal Palace in Honululu, Hawaii. A traditional 'hula' dance is performed, to honour Hawaii's last monarch, Queen Lilo'uokalani. Like the kapa itself, the Queen, rudely overthrown by Americans, has become a symbol of reborn Hawaiian identity.

MON 20:00 South Pacific (b00kwdqr)
Ocean of Volcanoes

Witness the birth, growth and death of an island in the greatest ocean on Earth. Millions of years are condensed into an hour revealing unforgettable images of an erupting underwater volcano; rivers of lava exploding below the waves; roads and houses buried by molten rivers of rock. From these violent beginnings emerge coral reefs of unparalleled richness, supporting large groups of grey reef sharks and giant manta rays.

The rising lands of the South Pacific have also given life to some very strange creatures, from the vampire bug that thrives in tropical snow, and the megapode, a bird that uses volcanic springs to incubate its eggs, to vast swarms of jellyfish trapped forever by a coral mountain. This is the Pacific as you've never seen it before.

MON 21:00 A History of Ancient Britain (b01971gm)
Orkney's Stone Age Temple

Neil Oliver investigates the discovery of a 5,000-year-old temple in Orkney. Built 500 years before Stonehenge, the temple has triggered new thoughts about the beliefs of Neolithic people, turning the map of ancient Britain upside down.

The vast site lies undisturbed until now, set within one of the most important ancient landscapes in the world. There have been some incredible finds, including the first ever discovery of Neolithic painted wall decorations, and even the pigments and paint pots used by Stone Age artists.

Special effects have been used to bring this archaeological evidence to life, creating a 3D model of the entire temple, allowing Neil to walk inside in a bid to understand just how it might have been used.

MON 22:00 The Secret Life of Landfill: A Rubbish History (b0bgpc2f)
In a unique science experiment, Dr George McGavin and Dr Zoe Laughlin chronicle the history of rubbish and explore how what we throw away tells us about the way we live our lives. With unprecedented access to one of the UK's largest landfill sites, the team of experts spend three days carrying out tests all over the site, revealing the secret world of rubbish. They also carry out three other 'archaeological' digs into historic landfills to chart the evolution of our throwaway society. Ultimately, their quest is to discover whether the items we throw away today have any value for tomorrow's world.

MON 23:30 Storyville (b076nqjb)
Being Evel Knievel

An enjoyable look at the first globally famous stunt performer, exploring the charisma and showmanship at the heart of Evel Knievel's improbable success. Knievel made a career out of ridiculous stunts and rose to fame with multiple television appearances of his daredevil stunts that captured the public's imagination throughout the late 1960s and 70s.

With fantastic archive, the film takes the audience on a rollercoaster ride from his early motorcycle stunts, through to his attempt to be fired across Snake River Canyon, to his time in jail for brutally assaulting his business partner.

The darker side of Knievel's larger-than-life persona also emerges, especially among those who knew him best. Friends, family and business colleagues paint a complex portrait of a man who preferred to be seen as a self-styled myth. His love of alcohol, womanising, and temper were all eclipsed by an obsession with insane stunts bordering on a death wish.

MON 01:00 Bought with Love: The Secret History of British Art Collections (b037c5gt)
The Golden Age

With Britain's country houses being home to world-class art collections full of priceless old masters and more, this three-part series sees art historian Helen Rosslyn tell the story of how great art has been brought to Britain by passionate collectors and how these same collectors have also turned patron and commissioned work from the cream of their contemporary crop of painters.

In this episode she focuses on the 18th century, the Grand Tour era when aristocrats filled their Palladian villas with masterpieces by 17th-century classical painters. Throwing open the doors of some of our most magnificent stately homes, Rosslyn visits Holkham Hall in Norfolk to view the Grand Tour collection there, before going on to explore the legacy of the Dukes of Richmond at Goodwood House. She also visits Petworth House in Sussex, where the one-time Lord Egremont patronised JMW Turner.

MON 02:00 South Pacific (b00kwdqr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

MON 03:00 A History of Ancient Britain (b01971gm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

TUESDAY 02 OCTOBER 2018

TUE 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0bltjsy)
Series 1

02/10/2018

Katty Kay in Washington and Christian Fraser in London return to report on the events that are shaping the world.

TUE 19:30 The Science of D-Day (b045gr8m)
In June 1944, one of the greatest amphibious assaults in history was launched from the south coast of England. Within a matter of hours, 7,000 vessels had landed 156,000 troops on the beaches of Normandy. It was a manoeuvre that changed the course of the war and tested innovations in science and engineering for the first time.

In this programme, engineer Rob Bell looks at the nuts and bolts which made such a staggering invasion possible - from giant troop-carrying gliders to tanks that could drive on water - and how necessity really did become the mother of invention. Like all new inventions, not all of them worked and resulted in devastating consequences. We find out why. This is the science of D-Day.

TUE 20:00 A Very British Romance with Lucy Worsley (b06jp0zq)
Episode 3

Lucy Worsley concludes her series with the most dramatic transformation of romance yet. Out of the carnage of World War One came a racier species of romantic love. It could be found in the novel The Sheik, the Fifty Shades of Grey of its time, while in real life Marie Stopes urged husbands and wives to explore their sexual desire.

New entertainments like dining out for two allowed couples to get to know one another without a chaperone, while going to the cinema provided a dark environment where hands could roam free. But as the hedonistic era of World War Two encouraged these more permissive attitudes, divorce rates soared. Romance, though, would prevail, with a fightback led by the queen of romance herself, Barbara Cartland.

TUE 21:00 Life Story (b04n8xgq)
Series 1

Growing Up

In the journey towards adulthood, a moment comes for all animals when they must strike out on their own. With their parents absent they must learn to survive in a dangerous world. At this stage of life every small success may mean the difference between life and death.

TUE 22:00 Greece with Simon Reeve (p03gk743)
Episode 1

In the first episode of this two-part travel series, Simon Reeve travels from the islands of the Aegean to Greece's capital, Athens. To learn more about Greece and the Greeks, he meets an extraordinary cast of characters, from gun-toting priests to the last remaining sponge divers. Getting behind the picture postcard image of this beautiful country, he finds out how the Greeks are coming to terms with a seemingly endless crisis.

TUE 23:00 Dara & Ed's Road to Mandalay (b08psbn8)
Series 1

Malaysia

Dara and Ed begin their journey in Malaysia, a vibrant multicultural nation thanks to its history as a staging post on the east-west trading routes.

Arriving in downtown Kuala Lumpur, Dara and Ed are keen to see beyond the bright lights and towering skyscrapers of Malaysia's economic boom and find out how Malaysia's diverse communities are holding on to their own traditions and ways of life. They begin by doing what the locals do on a Saturday afternoon and watch a beauty pageant - for chickens - before joining a mass cycle ride through the city.

Leaving Kuala Lumpur, they head up into the Genting Highlands to stay in the largest hotel in the world and watch the finals of the prestigious World Lion Dance Championships, before travelling onto one of the oldest jungles in the world, Taman Negara. Here they meet the Batek, a Malaysian indigenous tribe that is struggling to find its place in this rapidly modernising nation. Taking the Jungle Train north, they visit Malaysia's Islamic State Kota Bharu to try their hand at shadow puppetry and then finish in Georgetown, a Unesco World Heritage site, where they take part in a spectacular traditional Peranakan feast to celebrate the end of the Malaysian leg of their journey.

TUE 00:00 Rococo: Travel, Pleasure, Madness (b03sg830)
Travel

Following the grandeur of Baroque, Rococo art is often dismissed as frivolous and unserious, but Waldemar Januszczak disagrees. In this three-part series he re-examines Rococo art and argues that the Rococo was actually the age in which the modern world was born. Picking three key territories of Rococo achievement - travel, pleasure and madness - Waldemar celebrates the finest cultural achievements of the period and examine the drives and underlying meanings that make them so prescient.

The first episode is about travel in the 18th century and how it impacted greatly on some of the finest art ever made. The world was getting smaller and took on new influences shown in the glorious Bavarian pilgrimage architecture, Canaletto's romantic Venice and the blossoming of exotic designs and tastes all over Europe. The Rococo was art expressing itself in new, exciting ways.

TUE 01:00 The Hidden Art of Islam (b01dczjj)
At the British Museum, a collection of artefacts from the Muslim world is on show, which tells the history of a journey to Mecca always forbidden to non-Muslims. It features a succession of examples of the rich visual language of Islamic culture past and present, artwork created to reflect the powerful experience for any Muslim making the Hajj pilgrimage to Islam's most sacred city and its most sacred building, the Ka'aba. However, an art form not usually associated with Islam is also on show, a form many believe is prohibited by Islam - portraits, depictions of human figures and whole tableaux showing pilgrims performing the most important pillar of the Muslim faith.

In this documentary, Rageh Omaar sets out to find out that if human depiction is the source of such controversy, how is it that the art displayed here shows a tradition of figurative art at the heart of Islam for century after century? He explores what forms of art are acceptable for a Muslim - and why this artistic tradition has thrived - in the hidden art of the Muslim world.

TUE 02:00 Life Story (b04n8xgq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

TUE 03:00 A Very British Romance with Lucy Worsley (b06jp0zq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

WEDNESDAY 03 OCTOBER 2018

WED 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0bltjtc)
Series 1

03/10/2018

Katty Kay in Washington and Christian Fraser in London return to report on the events that are shaping the world.

WED 19:30 The Secret Life of Books (b06pm5v9)
Series 2

Swallows and Amazons

Former journalist and keen amateur sailor John Sergeant takes to the water in the wake of the plucky young heroes of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons, and learns how a globe-trotting foreign correspondent and acquintance of Lenin and Trotsky came to perfect a new, more authentic kind of children's literature that featured real children doing real things in real places.

WED 20:00 Sheila Hancock Brushes Up: The Art of Watercolours (b00yzgtn)
Watercolours have always been the poor relation of oil painting. And yet the immediacy and freedom of painting in watercolours have made them the art of adventure and action - even war. It has been an art form the British have pioneered, at first celebrating the greatest landscapes of Europe and then recording the exotic beauty of the British Empire.

Sheila Hancock, an ardent fan of watercolours since her childhood and whose father was an amateur watercolourist, sets out on a journey to trace the art form. It takes in the glories of the Alps, the city of Venice and deepest India as she tracks the extraordinary story of professional and amateur watercolourists, and reveals some of the most beautiful and yet little-known pictures.

WED 21:00 Wonders of the Great Barrier Reef with Iolo Williams (b0bltzbn)
On the other side of the world under the crystal clear blue waters of the Pacific Ocean lies one of the most enchanting places on the planet. Over ten thousand miles away on the north eastern coast of Australia lies the Great Barrier Reef, one of the natural wonders of our world. It provides shelter to some hidden wildlife sanctuaries that contain some magical marine creatures.

Invited on a reef adventure by Emmy Award-winning underwater cinematographer and marine biologist Richard Fitzpatrick, conservationist and naturalist Iolo Williams dives deep beneath the surface of the coral sea to discover what state this natural wonder is in. Together they travel from the extreme swells of the northern part of the reef right down to the cooler pristine corals of the south. They discover how healthy the Great Barrier Reef really is in some of its key locations to see and find out if there are real signs of hope the reef can survive the threat of global warming.

WED 22:00 Empire (b01db7xc)
Making Ourselves at Home

Jeremy Paxman traces the story of the greatest empire the world has ever known: the British Empire. He continues his personal account of Britain's empire by looking at how traders, conquerors and settlers spread the British way of doing things around the world - in particular how they created a very British idea of home.

He begins in India, where early traders wore Indian costume and took Indian wives. Their descendants still cherish their mixed heritage. Victorian values put a stop to that as interracial mixing became taboo.

In Singapore, he visits a club where British colonials gathered together, in Canada, he finds a town whose inhabitants are still fiercely proud of the traditions of their Scottish ancestors, in Kenya, he meets the descendants of the first white settlers - men whose presence came to be bitterly resented as pressure for African independence grew.

And he traces the story of an Indian family in Leicester whose migrations have been determined by the changing fortunes of the British empire.

WED 23:00 Horizon (b07vxkbv)
2016

Jimmy Carr and the Science of Laughter

Comedian Jimmy Carr takes over Horizon for this one-off special programme, produced as part of BBC2's sitcom season.

Jimmy turns venerable documentary strand Horizon into a chat show, with eminent laughter scientists as guests and a studio audience to use as guinea pigs. Jimmy and his guests try to get to the bottom of what laughter is, why we enjoy it so much and what, if anything, it has to do with comedy.

Between them, and with the help of contributions from other scientists on film, Jimmy and guests discover that laughter is much older than our species, and may well have contributed to making us human.

With professors Sophie Scott, Robin Dunbar and Peter McGraw.

WED 00:00 A Very British Airline (b047hjf9)
Episode 3

In this final episode we're in the company's main control room with operations manager, and rugby enthusiast, Kevin McKenzie.

He reveals how the airline manages the challenges of operating out of the world's most congested airport, and deals with the knock-on effects of some passengers actions - from panic attacks before take-off to suspicious items discovered in luggage.

We follow the training of the airline's first intake of cadet pilots since the downturn in air travel after 9/11- each cadet has to pay £84,000 for the 18-month course, so failure would be expensive.

And through some of the company's 40,000 staff, including ex-Harrods manager David Page, we explore what makes BA such a Very British Airline.

WED 01:00 The Treasure Hunters (b040zb5q)
Man-made Treasure

Ellie Harrison and Dallas Campbell reveal the greatest treasures we've ever created.

Dallas braves vicious currents to dive on a shipwreck where gold, silver and 5,000 emeralds have been found. Ellie tells the tale of intrigue and obsession surrounding a jewelled room in Russia decorated with millions of pounds worth of amber. She enters the secretive world of the diamond cutters - each lives with the knowledge that a slip of the hand could cost them millions of pounds.

WED 02:00 Sheila Hancock Brushes Up: The Art of Watercolours (b00yzgtn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

WED 03:00 Wonders of the Great Barrier Reef with Iolo Williams (b0bltzbn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

THURSDAY 04 OCTOBER 2018

THU 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0bltjtr)
Series 1

04/10/2018

Katty Kay in Washington and Christian Fraser in London report on the events that are shaping the world.

THU 19:27 DEC Indonesia Tsunami Appeal (b0bp5rv7)
Dan Snow presents the DEC Indonesia Tsunami Appeal.

You can give by calling 0370 60 60 900 (standard geographic charges from landlines and mobiles will apply) or send a cheque to:
DEC Indonesia Tsunami Appeal to DEC, PO Box 999, London EC3A 3AA.

THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b0bm6svx)
John Peel and Janice Long present this pop chart programme, first broadcast on 29 May 1986. Featuring Doctor and the Medics, Robert Palmer, The Real Thing, Tears for Fears, Pete Wylie, Spitting Image and Peter Gabriel.

THU 20:00 Andrew Marr on Darwin's Dangerous Idea (b00jdcyd)
Life and Death

In the final episode of this groundbreaking series about Charles Darwin's legacy, Andrew Marr discovers how Darwin's ideas are helping us to save ourselves and all life on earth from extinction. Marr argues that Charles Darwin is the father of ecology. The modern environmental movement was built upon his insight that all life on earth is linked by a delicate web of connections. He also discovers that Darwin's dangerous idea is inspiring scientists to create a 'flotilla of Darwinian Noah's Arks' to help save life on earth from disaster.

Exploring the impact of industrialisation, intensive farming and our growing hunger for meat, Marr tells the story of our slow awakening to the full implications of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and our own destructive powers as a species. After showing how Darwin developed his ideas by digging up fossils, exploring coral reefs and studying the habits of the humble earthworm, Marr explains how Darwin's dangerous idea was launched into the space age. He discovers the mysterious movements of the 'mouse society', snorkels over a coral reef and visits a 'boiling cauldron of evolution' - the tropical rainforest - which is now threatened by the shadow of mass extinction.

Over the last 150 years, the combination of Darwin's ideas with politics has often had disastrous social consequences. In this programme, Andrew Marr argues that our failure to combine politics with Darwin's insights into the delicate connections between all life on earth could be accelerating the countdown to our own extinction.

THU 21:00 The Motorway: Life in the Fast Lane (b04hg23s)
Weight of Traffic

Documentary following the army of workers overseeing and making repairs to the M6, the UK's major arterial motorway, and local residents Jim and Alan who live just 20 metres from where the roadworks are taking place. Built more than 40 years ago, the M6 carries up to 8,000 vehicles every hour and the surface needs constant maintenance. With the need to keep the heavy traffic flowing at all times competing with the constant need to make repairs, it is a battle to stop it all grinding to a halt.

For the last six years, there has been a succession of roadworks on this stretch of the motorway resulting in a string of complaints from Jim who has the Highways Agency number permanently 'logged in his phone'. With the latest roadworks again scheduled during the night when the motorway is at its quietest, Jim knows what to expect - 'you start seeing orange lights flashing and at 3 and 4 in the morning it's disco time'. For Alan, the noise of the roadworks outside his home is 'like a war game' and he ponders whether his next move is to call the 24-hour hotline or email his local MP. A few doors down, Jim has armed himself with a decibel meter to record the sound levels in the hope that someone will realise how 'unbearable' the disruption is.

Meanwhile, Jim and Alan are not the only ones having sleepless nights as the safety inspectors working the graveyard shift go on the lookout for heavy-freight truckers breaking the rules and a team of workers carry out the repairs to a four-mile stretch of the M6.

THU 22:00 Horizon (b039grrx)
2013-2014

Dinosaurs: The Hunt for Life

The hunt for life within the long-dead bones of dinosaurs may sound like the stuff of Hollywood fantasy, but one woman has found traces of life within the fossilised bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Dr Mary Schweitzer has seen the remains of red blood cells and touched the soft tissue of an animal that died 68 million years ago. Most excitingly of all, she believes she may just have found signs of DNA. Her work is revolutionising our understanding of these iconic beasts.

THU 23:00 Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain with Simon Sebag Montefiore (b06s5x0t)
Reconquest

Simon uncovers the truth about Spain's hero El Cid. He also investigates the horror of the Spanish Inquisition and in the process discovers an unsettling story about one of his own ancestors.

THU 00:00 Top of the Pops (b0bm6svx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]

THU 00:30 EMI: The Inside Story (b07c6fj7)
One record company has been a constant presence in popular music throughout our lives.

EMI brought The Beatles to the world and in every decade since has been instrumental in producing some of Britain's most celebrated and enduring music.

But behind the success lay a very British institution often at odds with the music it released. It had to come to terms with psychedelia, face punk head-on and find huge sums of money to feed the excesses of the 1980s.

Interviews with EMI artists including members of Queen, Pink Floyd, The Sex Pistols and Pet Shop Boys reveal how their demands for more and more control ultimately led to drastic changes at EMI. Former EMI employees share the gossip and goings-on in an industry infamous for its extravagance.

The British music industry is world-renowned. It has produced decades of memorable music that have reached all corners of the globe. EMI has always been at the forefront and has left an indelible mark on our culture forever.

THU 01:30 Awesome Beauty: The Art of Industrial Britain (b093q7gp)
Lachlan Goudie explores Britain's spectacular industrial landscapes and the artists and artworks inspired by them in a passionate and thought-provoking journey that challenges our national stereotypes. Travelling the length and breadth of the UK, and visiting an impressive range of industrial sites, from shipyards to quarries, mines to abandoned wind tunnels, steelworks to space age laboratories, Goudie builds a surprising and compelling alternative picture of Britain.

Featuring revelatory industrial art by the likes of JMW Turner, Graham Sutherland and photographer Maurice Broomfield, the film reveals the awesome beauty, drama and significance of our industrial heritage and proves there is so much more to these isles than the picture postcard cliche of a 'green and pleasant land'.

THU 02:30 Handmade in the Pacific (b0bm6pjv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 on Monday]

THU 03:00 Andrew Marr on Darwin's Dangerous Idea (b00jdcyd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

FRIDAY 05 OCTOBER 2018

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b0bltjv2)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (b0bm6tdn)
Pop chart programme. Simon Bates and Gary Davies present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 5 June 1986. Featuring Cashflow, Simply Red, Pet Shop Boys, Doctor and the Medics, Genesis, Nu Shooz and Jaki Graham.

FRI 20:00 Gregory Porter's Popular Voices (b09gvqj9)
Series 1

Truth Tellers

Gregory examines how early 20th-century blues growlers like Bessie Smith paved the way for the rhyme and flow of hip-hop, how truth became a quest of rock 'n' roll's greatest poets from Woody Guthrie to Gil Scott-Heron, from Lou Reed to Suzanne Vega, and why great popular voices, including Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Kurt Cobain, don't have to be technically perfect to resonate so deeply and stir our souls. With Dave Grohl, Suzanne Vega and KRS-One.

FRI 21:00 Rock 'n' Roll America (b0615nmw)
Sweet Little Sixteen

In Cold War mid-1950s America, as the new suburbia was spreading fast in a country driven by racial segregation, rock 'n' roll took the country by surprise. Out of the Deep South came a rhythm-driven fusion of blues, boogie woogie and vocal harmony played by young black pioneers like Fats Domino and Little Richard that seduced young white teens and, pre-civil rights, got black and white kids reeling and rocking together.

This fledgling sound was nurtured by small independent labels and travelled up from the Mississippi corridor spawning new artists. In Memphis, Elvis began his career as a local singer with a country twang who rocked up a blues song and sounded so black he confused his white listeners. And in St Louis, black blues guitarist Chuck Berry took a country song and turned it into his first rock 'n' roll hit, Maybellene.

Movies had a big role to play thanks to 'social problem' films exploring the teenager as misfit and delinquent - The Wild One showed teens a rebellious image and a look, and Blackboard Jungle gave them a soundtrack, with the film's theme tune Rock Around the Clock becoming the first rock 'n' roll Number 1 in 1955.

Featuring Jerry Lee Lewis, Don Everly, Little Richard, Tom Jones, Wanda Jackson, Pat Boone, The Spaniels, PF Sloan, Joe Boyd, Jerry Phillips, Marshall Chess, JM Van Eaton (Jerry Lee Lewis's drummer), Charles Connor (Little Richard's drummer) and Dick Richards (Bill Haley's drummer).

FRI 22:00 Can You Feel It - How Dance Music Conquered the World (b0bm6tlp)
Series 1

The DJ

In the final, part we tell the story of the DJ. With a cast that features todays biggest DJ stars alongside house pioneers, we plot the DJ path from invisibility to centre stage. How is it that people who play records are today's highest paid music stars? As Norman Cook says, 'There's two types of people in the world. Those that hear a record they like and have to listen to it over and over again in their headphones. They're called normal people. Then there's another kind that as soon as they hear a record they like, they have to play it to loads of other people. And they're called DJs'.

Today the DJ is a major celebrity. Rich, influential and very powerful. As David Guetta says, 'It was impossible to think that we were going to become the biggest musical phenomenon in the world. But we did it'.

We follow the record box from Greg Wilson - demonstrating mixing two records on a 1980s edition of The Tube - through Ibiza vibe-pioneer Alfredo, to Paul Oakenfold's legendary sets at acid house night Spectrum. And we tell the stories of today's megastar mixers. DJs who earn upwards of $50 million a year.

With in-depth interviews with David Guetta, Steve Aoki, Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, Black Madonna, Moby and Midland, we discover the highs and the inevitable lows of this new brand of music stardom. The sometimes isolated existence of the lone DJ is brought in to sharp focus by the recent tragic death of 28-year-old Swedish House megastar Avicii.

Other contributors include Pete Tong, Jeff Mills, Terry Farley, Fabio and Nina Kravitz.

FRI 23:00 The People's History of Pop (b077rchk)
The Birth of the Fan

Twiggy celebrates the 60s, meeting skiffle musicians, fans of The Shadows, Liverpudlians who frequented the Cavern Club at the height of Merseybeat, Beatles devotees, Ready Steady Go! dancers, mods, lovers of ska, bluebeat and Millie Small, and fans of The Rolling Stones.

Unearthed pop treasures include a recording of John Lennon's first ever recorded performance with his band The Quarrymen.

FRI 00:00 Top of the Pops (b0bm6tdn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]

FRI 00:30 Promises & Lies: The Story of UB40 (b084j56n)
One of the most commercially successful acts of all time, UB40 enjoyed decades of huge success, selling over 70 million records with global hits including Red Red Wine, Can't Help Falling in Love and I Got You Babe.

But stardom and fame came at a price, and the band found themselves victims of their own success - bankrupt and penniless.

Ali Campbell, Robin Campbell, Astro, Brian Travers, Mickey Virtue and Jimmy Brown recount their phenomenal rise to fame and speak with candour about their ongoing dispute that has split a family and a band as they continue to tour as two separate groups - both using the name UB40.

FRI 01:30 Gregory Porter's Popular Voices (b09gvqj9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

FRI 02:30 Rock 'n' Roll America (b0615nmw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]