Is there a wild side to Britain’s busiest road? Author and naturalist Helen Macdonald embarks on a clockwise loop around London’s orbital motorway - searching for hidden wildness and natural beauty within the sight and sound of the M25. Along her journey, Helen encounters the remarkable people, plants and animals living above, beside and beneath the motorway, and delves into the controversial history of the UK’s longest and least-loved bypass.
The M25 has been part of Britain’s landscape for nearly 35 years, so how has the natural world adapted to the motorway carving a path through its environment? Starting just south of the Thames at Kent’s Junction 1, Helen explores the woodland that lines the first 40 miles of the M25. In a first sign of how animals’ lives are shaped by the man-made world, great tits are changing the pitch of their calls in order to be heard above the roar of the road. But humans have often been less willing to adapt to the M25’s noisy presence.
The village of Shoreham won a battle to divert the motorway, thanks to the landscape paintings of 19th-century artist Samuel Palmer. Palmer’s paintings are highly prized today for their pre-impressionistic style and their idyllic visions of a benign countryside. Although Palmer’s vision was at odds with the harsher reality for farmworkers of the time, 20th-century locals leveraged their emotive value to save Shoreham’s valley and re-route the motorway through nearby woods.
Autumn rains trigger fungi to emerge into the roadside woodland. One species, Neurospora, offers a potential solution to our congested highways. Neurospora’s mobile DNA flows smoothly around an incredibly complex network of fungal freeways. Scientists are trying to figure out the fungi’s secret, in the hope of one day inspiring more robust transport networks.
The western arc of the motorway crosses a watery world of rivers and canals. Helen dives into the serene spaces created in gaps between the motorway and the waterways. Local author JG Ballard was obsessed with the hidden spaces around our urban infrastructure, using them as settings for his dystopian novels. Where the M25 crosses the river Thames, Helen searches for plant life on the damp concrete beneath the motorway. Mosses are often overlooked, but Natural History Museum botanist Dr Silvia Pressel reveals that the drought-resistant properties of these primitive plants are key to how plants made their move from water to the uninhabitable rocky land. This huge leap 500 million years ago paved the way for all of today’s land plants and the mammals that rely on them.
The final watercourse Helen explores is the river Chess, one of only 200 chalk streams in the world, 85% of which are in southern England. This crystal-clear waterway passes right beneath the motorway through a tiny non-descript culvert. In early winter, female brown trout dig their nests right by the motorway in the gravel of the riverbed - a ritual unchanged for millions of years.
The motorway’s northern arc is defined by grasslands where Helen discovers foxes and kestrels in the verges beside the motorway. At Rothamsted Research Station, she discovers why this unfertilized environment is such a special place for wildlife, in contrast to the less diverse cropland beyond.
At Waltham Abbey in Essex, Helen reveals an incredible world lurking in the rubble of what was once Britain's largest gunpowder factory, where the wild has reclaimed the land. Just beyond this derelict landscape lies Epping Forest, home to 500 fallow deer. The motorway presents a huge potential hazard to the animals whilst they are distracted by the autumn rut. Luckily, the deer have worked out how to cross the motorway safely via a little-used farm bridge.
In the final eastern quarter, Helen finds industrial wastelands being reclaimed by nature. The co-ordinated acrobatic display of a flock of lapwing inspires Helen to meet a team of Cambridge University computer scientists. They are using animal swarm-inspired rules to programme fleets of robot cars, showing how, by co-operating with each other, they are able to avoid traffic jams. This semi-autonomous technology could soon be applied to our own road vehicles, allowing our motor cars to self-organise the solutions to potential snarl-ups. By borrowing simple principles from swarming animals, everyone will get home faster.
Helen concludes her lap of the M25 by approaching the giant QEII suspension bridge over the River Thames. Just upriver, Helen discovers the wonderfully wild Rainham Marshes. This former MOD firing range has been turned into a sanctuary for waders and wintering wildfowl. Rainham is a final example of how the brownfield sites encountered all along the motorway have an incredible capacity for wildlife. They are often already earmarked for development; in many cases we should be doing our best to protect them.
The real side of boat life with Robbie Cumming. Robbie runs aground on the Rochdale Canal - will he make it to Manchester?
Autumn 1918. A group of soldiers return from the trenches. The world-weary Benedick and his friend Claudio find themselves reacquainted with Beatrice and Hero.
As memories of conflict give way to a life of parties and masked balls, Claudio and Hero fall madly, deeply in love, while Benedick and Beatrice reignite their own altogether more combative courtship.
The drama is set amidst the brittle high spirits of a post-war house party, where youthful passions run riot, lovers are deceived and happiness is threatened - before peace ultimately wins out.
Christopher Luscombe directs Michelle Terry and Edward Bennett as Beatrice and Benedick in this acclaimed Royal Shakespeare Company production.
Today, they are at the centre of British cultural life and among our greatest exports - the acting dames, an exclusive club of stage and screen greats who were honoured for their services to drama. But, lurking in the BBC archives - from long before their talents were recognised by royal decree - we find the early work and some career defining moments of Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren. David Tennant narrates the story of our dames of classic drama, from a golden age of British television drama.
A richly detailed journey through the epic history of still-life painting, featuring a range of delights from the earliest existing Xenia mural paintings discovered at Pompeii to the cubist masterpieces of Picasso.
Awash with rich imagery of fruit, flowers and humble domestic objects, this lively take on the story of still life encompasses the work of some of the genre's greatest artists from Caravaggio to Chardin and Cezanne. But it also captures the surprising contributions of the less well-known, including asparagus enthusiast Adriaen Coorte and female flower painter in the court of Louis XVI, Anne Vallayer-Coster.
With contributions from historians Bettany Hughes and Janina Ramirez, art historians Andrew Graham Dixon and Norman Bryson, and philosopher Alain de Botton amongst others, it opens up the huge social histories that lie behind the paintings and the fascinating lives of the people who made them.
Bianca has big plans for her kids' return but will all go to plan? Steven pushes for a closer relationship with Stacey, with embarrassing consequences. Jack and Ronnie grow closer.
Stacey changes her mind about Steven, but is her heart in it? Bianca is determined to win her kids round, and Ronnie feels pushed out by the arrival of Penny.
Steven feels under pressure to perform on his first night with Stacey. Ronnie and Roxy's rivalry escalates over the barmaid of the year competition. Sean has a nasty surprise for Gus.
Christian tries to get the bottom of Steven's angst. Roxy and Dawn slug it out in the barmaid of the year competition. Pat finds out the truth about Ricky's situation.
MONDAY 06 JULY 2020
MON 19:00 Yorkshire Walks (m000brwb)
Series 1
Leyburn to Bolton Castle
With the dawn chorus of bird song in the air, Yorkshire artist Shanaz Gulzar takes time out from the hustle and bustle of life to indulge in Wensleydale and its wonderful vistas. Along her ramble through the dale, Shanaz discovers evidence of an industrial past, and talks to a volunteer worker on the heritage railway line. She walks onwards to the impressive Bolton Castle, the location of Mary Queen of Scots' imprisonment in 1568.
Filming herself and everything around her on a 360-degree-selfie-style-camera Shanaz wanders through the countryside, often deep in thought and stopping only to chat, sketch and reflect.
MON 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000kqq0)
Series 2
Dock Scene
Join Bob Ross as he paints a water scene offset by an abandoned shipping boat hugging a pier and some charming old dockside storage sheds.
American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.
Across the series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.
Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.
MON 20:00 Black and British: A Forgotten History (b084ndpt)
The Homecoming
Historian David Olusoga concludes his series with the three African kings who stood up to empire, an irresistible crooner, race riots in Liverpool and the shaping of black British identity in the 20th century.
MON 21:00 Being Beethoven (m000kqq2)
Series 1
Episode 1
‘…this strange deafness…’
Unfolding chronologically, Being Beethoven grapples with the living, breathing human being often lost behind the myth of the Romantic genius. Beethoven emerges as a man of contrasts and extremes — driven by love, anguish, fury and joy — qualities woven through both his life and his music.
By returning the composer to the context of his own time and place, telling his life story in the present tense, Being Beethoven reveals how the composer’s life frequently appears to follow an entirely different trajectory to his art. What emerges is a complex and often contradictory individual living a life marked by isolation, ill-health and deafness. A man who, despite the frequent wretchedness of his personal circumstances, manages to create musical masterpieces that have enthralled and uplifted the world for 250 years.
Episode 1 explores Beethoven's childhood, the crucible in which the man and his music are formed, and his subsequent rise to fame as a piano virtuoso, then composer, in late 18th-century Vienna. Groomed as a prodigy by a demanding and often violent father, Beethoven’s psyche is also marked by the death of his mother when he is 16 years old. Beethoven emerges as a great but troubled talent, an unstoppable force of nature until the onset of deafness tears his world apart.
The realisation that Beethoven is losing his hearing — the sense upon which not only his career is built, but his very sense of self — leads to a devastating psychological collapse and a letter, written to his brothers Carl and Johann, known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. In it, Beethoven not only contemplates suicide but also looks at his future and accepts that he will have to create his art under extraordinary circumstances.
As well as interviews with Beethoven biographers and scholars such as Jan Swafford and Barry Cooper, the series features contributions and performances from musicians including Iván Fischer, Marin Alsop, the Takács Quartet, Evelyn Glennie, Paul Lewis, Mark Padmore and Chi-chi Nwanoku.
MON 22:00 The Long Song (b0bw9b86)
Series 1
Episode 1
July is born to a field slave Kitty (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) at the Amity sugar cane plantation, run by John Howarth (Leo Bill) and his younger sister Caroline. On a spoilt whim, Caroline decides she wants to train the adorable July as her personal maid. So, as a young girl, July is taken from her mother and forced to live in the great house. As July grows up and becomes a teenager, she learns how to ‘handle’ her mistress with her own small victories along the way.
The Christmas riots and the abolition of slavery turn the world of Amity upside down and throw July’s destiny into question. But when order is restored and a new overseer Robert Goodwin (Jack Lowden) arrives at Amity, July and Caroline are both intrigued by his seemingly revolutionary plans to improve the plantation. Could his ideals change everything?
Cast includes Tamara Lawrance as July, Hayley Atwell as Caroline Mortimer, Jack Lowden as Robert Goodwin, Sir Lenny Henry as Godfrey, Doña Croll as Old July, Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Kitty, Ayesha Antoine as Molly, Arinzé Kene as Thomas, Ansu Kabia as James Richards, Jordan Bolger as Nimrod, Joy Richardson as Miss Rose, Madeleine Mantock as Miss Clara and Leo Bill as John Howarth.
MON 23:00 The Long Song (b0bw9cds)
Series 1
Episode 2
After Robert arrives at the great house, July and Caroline compete for his attention and a love triangle develops. The harvest at Amity is ready to be taken in or the crop will spoil, but tensions are brewing between the workers and Robert. Robert expects the workers to put in long hours; the workers are now free to challenge his authority.
With Robert feeling more and more humiliated with the ‘ungrateful’ former slaves, a dangerous stand-off develops between them. July can see Robert changing and this scares her.
Cast includes Tamara Lawrance as July, Hayley Atwell as Caroline Mortimer, Jack Lowden as Robert Goodwin, Sir Lenny Henry as Godfrey, Doña Croll as Old July, Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Kitty, Ayesha Antoine as Molly, Arinzé Kene as Thomas, Ansu Kabia as James Richards, Jordan Bolger as Nimrod, Joy Richardson as Miss Rose, Madeleine Mantock as Miss Clara and Leo Bill as John Howarth.
MON 00:00 Seven Ages of Britain (b00rl4zv)
Age of Empire
The story of the British Empire from 1750 to 1900, revealed through its art and treasures. David Dimbleby travels through Britain, America and India, tracing the descent from adventure and inspiration into moral bankruptcy as the Empire became a self-serving bureaucratic machine.
In Britain, David looks at William Hodges' paintings of Captain Cook's famous voyages, Sir Hiram Maxim's original machine gun, the relics of General Gordon brought back from the Sudan, and some of the priceless trophies plundered in foreign campaigns: Tipu's mechanical Tiger and the Benin Bronzes.
In Philadelphia, he explores William Penn's utopian Old Town, the Liberty Bell, and painter Benjamin West's pictorial white-washing of history in Penn's Treaty With the Indians.
In India, David looks at the colonial architecture of Calcutta, and some fabulous frescoes in a Rajasthan village mocking British customs and personalities.
The programme ends at the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace, not so much a monument to the British Empire as its mausoleum.
MON 01:00 Arena (m000775t)
Cindy Sherman #untitled
Cindy Sherman is one of the world’s leading contemporary artists. She is also notoriously elusive. So, it is a coup for Arena to get this in-depth and revealing audio interview with her. An exuberant weave of art and archive gives us a rare insight into one of the most influential artists alive today.
MON 02:00 The Joy of Painting (m000kqq0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
MON 02:30 Yorkshire Walks (m000brwb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
MON 03:00 Being Beethoven (m000kqq2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUESDAY 07 JULY 2020
TUE 19:00 Yorkshire Walks (m000bs11)
Series 1
Heptonstall to Stoodley Pike
Shanaz Gulzar steps back in time while walking through the historic village of Heptonstall. Filming on her handheld 360-degree selfie-style camera, Shanaz rambles past Hell Hole, along the canal in Hebden Bridge, before climbing uphill to the peace monument of Stoodley Pike. This is an historic walk that straddles both the north and south sides of Calderdale.
Inspired by the landscape Shanaz stops to sketch and read poetry. This walk is an intimate and personal account of West Yorkshire viewed through an artist’s eyes.
TUE 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000kqrd)
Series 2
Misty Rolling Hills
Bob Ross paints a group of tall trees that almost seem to be floating in the hazy foothills of a distant, blue-grey mountain set against a soft purple sky.
American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.
Across the series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.
Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.
TUE 20:00 Pavlopetri - The City Beneath the Waves (b015yh6f)
Just off the southern coast of mainland Greece lies the oldest submerged city in the world. It thrived for 2,000 years during the time that saw the birth of western civilisation.
An international team of experts uses cutting-edge technology to prise age-old secrets from the complex of streets and stone buildings that lie less than five metres below the surface of the ocean. State-of-the-art CGI helps to raise the city from the seabed, revealing for the first time in 3,500 years how Pavlopetri would once have looked and operated.
Underwater archaeologist Dr Jon Henderson leads the project in collaboration with Nic Flemming, the man whose hunch led to the discovery of Pavlopetri in 1967, and a team from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. Working alongside the archaeologists are a team from the Australian Centre for Field Robotics.
The teams scour the ocean floor, looking for artefacts. The site is littered with thousands of fragments, each providing valuable clues about the everyday lives of the people of Pavlopetri. From the buildings to the trade goods to the everyday tableware, each artefact provides a window into a forgotten world.
Together these precious relics provide us with a window to a time when Pavlopetri would have been at its height, showing us what life was like in this distant age and revealing how this city marks the start of western civilisation.
TUE 21:00 Black Nurses: The Women Who Saved the NHS (b083dgtb)
Documentary which tells the story of the thousands of Caribbean and African women who answered the call 70 years ago to come to the UK to save the then ailing health service. It's a tale of a struggle to overcome racism, their fight for career progression and their battle for national recognition.
TUE 22:00 The Long Song (b0bw9dqg)
Series 1
Episode 3
With the crop starting to spoil and Amity in ruins, Robert’s sanity starts to unravel with possibly devastating consequences for July and her child.
Many years later as an old woman, our narrator July is in a desperate position and uncertain of her future. Arrested for stealing food, July appears in court and someone July thought she’d never see again is an unexpected presence and could help to save her life.
Cast includes Tamara Lawrance as July, Hayley Atwell as Caroline Mortimer, Jack Lowden as Robert Goodwin, Sir Lenny Henry as Godfrey, Doña Croll as Old July, Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Kitty, Ayesha Antoine as Molly, Arinzé Kene as Thomas, Ansu Kabia as James Richards, Jordan Bolger as Nimrod, Joy Richardson as Miss Rose, Madeleine Mantock as Miss Clara and Leo Bill as John Howarth.
TUE 22:55 imagine... (b0bw9d69)
2018
Andrea Levy: Her Island Story
When Andrea Levy's father Winston stepped off the Empire Windrush in July 1948, he had no idea that in time the ship's name would come to describe a group of people betrayed by the British government, or that his daughter would become the voice of that generation. Her best-selling novel Small Island, about the experiences of Jamaican families integrating into post-war Britain, captured the imaginations of readers around the world and picked up nearly every award going upon publication in 2004.
But Andrea's story goes much further back than Small Island. Her earlier books, like Every Light In The House Burnin' and Fruit of the Lemon, explored questions of hybrid identity, providing rich details of a divided Britain in the second half of the twentieth century along the way. And her most recent novel, The Long Song, traced these themes all the way back to 1830s Jamaica, where the abolition of slavery failed to solve the many iniquities of colonisation.
As BBC One prepares to broadcast a new adaptation of The Long Song, with an all-star cast, imagine... profiles Andrea Levy and the journey she has made to become one of Britain's best-loved contemporary novelists. From her childhood in a Highbury council flat to the creative writing classes where she discovered her talent, Andrea tells Alan Yentob about the power of literature to transform lives.
With contributors including Lenny Henry, David Oyelowo, Benedict Cumberbatch and rising star Tamara Lawrance, this is the moving account of one of the most powerful voices of our generation.
TUE 00:10 Being Beethoven (m000kqq2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
TUE 01:10 The Joy of Painting (m000kqrd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
TUE 01:40 Yorkshire Walks (m000bs11)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
TUE 02:10 Black Nurses: The Women Who Saved the NHS (b083dgtb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 08 JULY 2020
WED 19:00 Yorkshire Walks (m000brtk)
Series 1
Runswick Bay to Whitby
This historic coastal walk takes artist Shanaz Gulzar along a stretch of the 109-mile Cleveland Way. Starting in Runswick Bay, and armed only with a handheld 360-degree selfie-style camera, Shanaz climbs the steep steps to the cliff top before strolling the coastal path, absorbing the beautiful landscape and its industrial past, before finishing at Whitby for sunset.
Meeting fellow walkers along the way, Shanaz finds inspirational spots to sketch and recite poetry.
WED 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000kqsn)
Series 2
Lakeside Cabin
A cabin finds a peaceful resting place in a warm setting of lush, lakeside greenery in this wonderful oval-shaped painting by Bob Ross.
American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.
Across the series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.
Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.
WED 20:00 Genius of the Ancient World (b066d0v5)
Confucius
In the final episode, Bettany travels to China on the trail of Confucius, a great sage of Chinese history whose ideas have fundamentally shaped the country of his birth for around 2,500 years.
WED 21:00 Ian Hislop's Stiff Upper Lip - An Emotional History of Britain (b01nd1ly)
Heyday
In the second part of his series about British emotion and identity, Ian Hislop argues that we have the Victorians to thank for making the stiff upper lip a genuinely national characteristic. He also shows how the belief became pervasive that suffering in silence was a service to society. And along the way he resurrects the stories of some remarkable - some might say bonkers - national heroes, like Captain Matthew Webb, the first person to swim the Channel.
Ian begins by returning to his own boarding school, Ardingly College in Sussex, which he admits forged his own character. In a classics lesson, on the playing fields and in chapel, Ian explores how the English public school system instilled a powerful ideology not only into upper- but middle-class boys, preparing them to run both the country and the fast expanding empire. He shows how, later in the century, these ideas were successfully rolled out to the roughest parts of Glasgow and beyond through the Boys' Brigade, founded 25 years before the Scouts, as a panacea for 'degenerate' working-class youth.
Ian also suggests that it was the Crimean War which heralded the democratisation of the stiff upper lip. The valour of ordinary privates was admired by all and for the first time they became national heroes - the new Victoria Cross was the first honour for which all ranks were eligible. Ian also discovers how even for today's Rifles Regiment holding it together unflappably remains essential.
Victorians tended to believe that a good dose of emotional restraint could even fortify women, and that by being uncomplaining and endlessly supportive - 'the angel in the house' - women could aspire towards their own version of the stiff upper lip.
Yet by the early 20th century some intellectuals, radicals and aesthetes were beginning to question the homogenised, quasi-industrial approach to character building - and were equating the stiff upper lip with hypocrisy and repression. And ultimately, the Victorian ideal of reticent stoicism shot through with imperial swagger could not survive the mud of Flanders. Yet it was precisely these values which fed the front line and persuaded so many officers and men to endure the First World War's unspeakable horrors. Ian goes to the battlefields of the Somme to tell the remarkable story of how one officer literally treated war as a game, using football to motivate his men to go over the top.
Ian also introduces the weeping policeman 'Robert Emotional', explains the dark context to Charles Darwin's observation 'Englishmen rarely cry' and talks to MP Rory Stewart about how the stiff upper lip helped see him through his time as a deputy governor in Iraq.
WED 22:00 Storyville (m000kqsq)
The Underdog and the Battle for Kenya
A Storyville documentary that looks at the tough reality of running for politics in a country riven by corruption and tribal factionalism through the story of Boniface ‘Softie’ Mwangi. Full of naive hope and enthusiasm, Boniface gives up his job as an award-winning photojournalist, exposing government corruption and human rights abuses to stand for election and make a difference.
For decades, elections in Kenya have been determined along tribal lines - a legacy of British rule. Two rival dynasties have held power since independence in 1963. For the country’s younger generation, Boniface represents hope for those who believe that an honest politician can win. But running a clean campaign against notoriously corrupt opponents is a challenge – especially when rival politicians’ lives are threatened, bribes are paid for votes and you’re running a campaign on a shoestring.
This is nothing, however, compared to the opposition to his new role from his feisty wife, Njeri. As election day looms and threats to his young family escalate, Njeri leaves Kenya with the kids and Boniface is left to fight his campaign alone. But he has a great team, a sense of humour and boundless optimism.
Will the election be a moment of change for Kenya? Will the sacrifice for Boniface be too great?
WED 23:35 A Timewatch Guide (b08cwrf2)
Series 3
British Empire: Heroes and Villains
Less than 100 years ago, the British ruled a quarter of the planet and one in five of the global population. Once, people were proud to call themselves imperialists, but now, to many, that seems like a badge of shame.
In this Timewatch guide, David Olusoga examines not whether the British Empire was a force for good or ill, but rather how it has been portrayed on British television over the last 70 years.
Drawing on decades of the documentary series Timewatch, plus many other gems from the BBC archive, David sees how Britain's Caribbean colonies grew rich on slave labour, how chaos gripped India post-independence, and how Africa was plundered for her mineral wealth.
David investigates how film-makers through the years have represented the actions and legacy of Britain's period as the world's ultimate superpower. It used to be said that the sun would never set on the British Empire - now, long after it's gone, the arguments surrounding it are very far from being settled.
WED 00:35 Pride and Prejudice (b0074rpj)
Episode 6
A dramatisation of Jane Austen's classic story of social mores. Mrs Bennet is delighted to have one of her daughters married at last. Elizabeth sees Wickham in his true colours when she meets him again after his elopement. There is great excitement in the neighbourhood when Bingley returns to Netherfield, bringing Darcy with him.
WED 01:25 The Joy of Painting (m000kqsn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
WED 01:55 Yorkshire Walks (m000brtk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
WED 02:25 Genius of the Ancient World (b066d0v5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THURSDAY 09 JULY 2020
THU 19:00 Yorkshire Walks (m000brvk)
Series 1
Bolton Abbey to Simon's Seat
The Bolton Abbey Estate provides the picturesque location for this Yorkshire Walk. Beginning at Bolton Priory, and armed with her handheld 360-degree selfie-style camera, artist Shanaz Gulzar meanders along the banks of the treacle-coloured River Wharfe before climbing up through the Valley of Desolation. She later heads onwards over moorland to Simon’s Seat and its breathtaking views across Wharfedale, Nidderdale and beyond.
Meeting fellow walkers along the way, Shanaz finds inspirational spots to sketch and recite poetry, while discovering Yorkshire’s hidden woodlands and waterfall.
THU 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000kqsv)
Series 2
Waterside Way
A path in the wilderness leads to the side of a still lake in a setting that Bob Ross accents with an abundance of trees.
American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.
Across the series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.
Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.
THU 20:00 Tess of the D'Urbervilles (b00dw3wg)
Episode 4
In the last in the four-part drama series based on the novel by Thomas Hardy, Angel has gone to Brazil, leaving Tess to endure a harsh winter on a swede farm.
While being relentlessly pursued by Alec, she has written to Angel, pleading with him to return before it is too late. Unfortunately, Angel has been struck down by a dangerous fever, and when Tess' sister arrives with bad news about their father it sparks a chain of misfortunes.
Will Tess ever see Angel again and find happiness at last?
THU 21:00 Borg vs McEnroe (m000cdxy)
In the summer of 1980, Bjorn Borg sits atop of the tennis world, dominating the sport both on and off the court. A powerful and rigorously disciplined player, there is only one obstacle in his pursuit of a record-breaking fifth Wimbledon championship - the highly talented but ferociously abrasive young American John McEnroe.
With three days until the tournament begins, Borg trains religiously in his lavish Monaco home, aided by his coach and mentor Lennart and girlfriend Mariana. But McEnroe's explosive confidence and wrecking-ball persona continue to infiltrate the Swede's ice-cool and normally unshakable temperament. With each man the antithesis of the other, both players delve into their formative memories as the climactic tournament draws near and anticipation reaches fever pitch.
The match marks the pinnacle of the fire and ice rivalry between the two players – a battle of personalities that sets the world of tennis alight.
THU 22:40 The History Boys (b01shmjd)
Alan Bennett's adaptation of his acclaimed, long-running play set in 1980s Yorkshire.
A class of likely lads, caught in a clash of educational styles as they prepare to apply to Oxford or Cambridge, find their loyalties as well as their intellects tested.
THU 00:30 Rebel Women: The Great Art Fight Back (b0b6zgm0)
Out of the tumult and fervour of the late 1960s emerged a generation of artists who set out to start a revolution. As women around the world joined forces to fight for liberation, the formative art movement of the last four decades was about to explode into being. On both sides of the Atlantic, women were tearing up art history and reinventing the arena of art with experimental new mediums and provocative political statements. Questioning everything from the way women were presented in magazines to the right to equal pay, female artists aimed to radically change the way women were perceived.
Mary Kelly caused outrage in the tabloids by displaying dirty nappies at the ICA, Margaret Harrison's depiction of Hugh Hefner as a bunny girl resulted in her exhibition being shut down by the police, and in Los Angeles Judy Chicago founded the first feminist art course and told her students to only study work by women. Alongside interviews with Turner Prize winner Lubaina Himid, Suzanne Lacy, Carolee Schneemann, Rose English, Laurie Simmons and Barbara Kruger, The Great Art Fight Back tells the story of these revolutionary artists and celebrates the grit, humour and determination that wrote women back into art history for good.
THU 01:30 The Joy of Painting (m000kqsv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 02:00 Yorkshire Walks (m000brvk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
THU 02:30 Ian Hislop's Stiff Upper Lip - An Emotional History of Britain (b01nd1ly)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Wednesday]
FRIDAY 10 JULY 2020
FRI 19:00 Royal Opera House: The Reopening (m000kqq7)
Anita Rani, Katie Derham and Antonio Pappano introduce highlights of the Royal Opera House’s first emotional performances after lockdown.
The programme features a world premiere from choreographer Wayne MacGregor, classic opera arias and songs performed by Gerald Finley, Louise Alder, Toby Spence, David Butt Philip, Sarah Connolly and the Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Young Artists as well as excerpts from ballets by Ashton, MacMillan and Wheeldon.
Antonio Pappano is joined by musicians from the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and the performances are filmed in line with social distancing rules against the backdrop of the beautiful Royal Opera House auditorium.
FRI 20:30 Top of the Pops (m000kqq9)
Gary Davies presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 30 November 1989 and featuring 808 State, Tina Turner and Kaoma.
FRI 21:00 Top of the Pops (m000kqqc)
Mark Goodier presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 7 December 1989 and featuring Jason Donovan, Big Fun and Sydney Youngblood.
FRI 21:30 Huey Morgan's Latin Music Adventure (m000kqqf)
Series 1
Cuba
Continuing his journey through Latin America, Huey arrives in Cuba to explore a country at a moment of reinvention. Cuba plays a unique part in the story of Latin American music - after the communist revolution of 1959, the country effectively closed its doors to the sights and sounds of the rest of the world.
From this point, Cuban music evolved in isolation from the other Latin-speaking countries, with traditional forms placed at the heart of their sound. The rhythms and melodies of Cuba’s people have captured the hearts of fans all around the world, and now that the government is gradually relaxing restrictions, more music is being released from Cuba than ever before.
Huey sets off from the capital Havana to explore the rich musical legacy of the island as well as getting a taste of things to come. Rumba is the foundation that Cuban music is built upon so Huey decides to check out the local scene and learn a little of how sex appeal is a crucial part of that beat.
But it isn’t all about hot dance moves - music is a central part of the Cuban education system, where kids get eight hours of free music tuition every week. Huey heads to one of Cuba’s many conservatoires to see a group of children rehearsing and meets up with one famous graduate, percussionist and singer Brenda Navarrette. Another musician making authentically Cuban music, but with a modern perspective, is Roberto Fonseca, the young pianist who got his break playing with Buena Vista Social Club and is now taking his own music around the world.
Huey discovers that one of the biggest challenges for musicians in Cuba today is not having access to the internet - across Havana you see groups of people clustered around government-designated ‘hot spots’ trying to get online - but what they find once they are on there is heavily censored. But Huey has heard about an ingenious solution. El Paquete (the Package) is a physical pirate internet, a drive containing all the latest films, music and news that is delivered by hand to users once a week. Huey joins one of the delivery guys to see what new music people are listening to! This mix of the old and the new is where Cuba is at its best, and the musicians are keen not to lose sight of what makes them unique.
Huey ends his journey by checking out Cimafunk at the Havana World Music festival. It’s clear that change is already here, but the sound of Cuba’s past is the sound of its future too.
FRI 22:30 Latin Music: A Session with (m000kqqh)
Series 1
Daymé Arocena
Daymé Arocena is an award-winning, classically trained Cuban musician, singer and composer. Here she performs music inspired by her Afro-Cuban heritage, including tracks from Cubafonía, the album that catapulted her onto the global stage.
FRI 23:00 Live Aid (b0078x3n)
Against All Odds
Documentary which traces the story of Live Aid from its humble beginnings, a pop tune cobbled together in the back seat of a taxi, to the eve of the biggest televised event ever staged on both sides of the Atlantic.
Against the background of Thatcher's Britain, one scruffy, fading rock star - Bob Geldof - recalls how he and his motley band of pop idols, rock and roll Del Boys and unpaid do-gooders tried to pull off the impossible - a global televised concert, never before attempted, to save the lives of the starving millions in Africa and force the Establishment to sit up and take the problem seriously.
With only weeks to go before the big day, Geldof had no stars on board, no line-up, no broadcaster and no venues - all he had was a date in the diary. The film tells the story of the race against time to put together the biggest event in pop history. Geldof remembers how he blagged, bluffed and lied to coerce the biggest stars of the day, while they - Elton John, Queen, Paul McCartney, David Bowie, U2 and others - recall how they finally buckled under the pressure.
FRI 00:30 Better than the Original: The Joy of the Cover Version (b06n9q8y)
Documentary which celebrates the role of the cover version in the pop canon and investigates what it takes to reinvent someone else's song as a smash.
Through ten carefully chosen cover versions that whisk us from the British Invasion to a noughties X Factor final, this film journeys over five decades to track how artists as varied as The Moody Blues, Soft Cell, Puff Daddy and Alexandra Burke have scored number ones with their retake on someone else's song. Each of the ten classic cover versions has its own particular tale, tied not only into its musical and cultural context but also the personal testimony of the artists, producers and songwriters whose lives were changed in the process.
Narrated by Meera Syal, it explores the stories behind such iconic hits as House of the Rising Sun, Respect, Tainted Love, I'll Be Missing You and Hallelujah, with contributors including John Cale, Gloria Jones, Marc Almond, Rick Rubin, Faith Evans and British singer-songwriter Nerina Pallot.
The cover version has always been a staple of the pop charts. Yet it's often been viewed as the poor relation of writing your own songs. This film challenges and overturns that misconception by celebrating an exciting, underrated musical form that has the power to make or break an artist's career. Whether as tribute, reinterpretation or as an act of subversion, the extraordinary alchemy involved in covering a record can create a new, defining version - in some cases, even more original than the original.
FRI 01:30 Country Music by Ken Burns (m000cf2d)
Series 1
Don't Get Above Your Raisin' (1984-1996)
As country music’s popularity rocketed, the genre questioned whether it could stay true to its roots. The success of ‘New Traditionalists’ like Reba McEntire and the Judds suggested it could.
Garth Brooks overcame rejection and exploded onto the scene. And after being left behind by his label, Johnny Cash returned to a studio with just his guitar and his unforgettable voice to record albums that sold millions of copies and earnt him the respect of the industry he helped to create. Meanwhile, Rosanne Cash came out of the shadow of her father to start her own music career.
FRI 02:25 Huey Morgan's Latin Music Adventure (m000kqqf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:30 today]
FRI 03:25 Latin Music: A Session with (m000kqqh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:30 today]