Paul Rose explores the spectacular South Cornwall coastline where he discovers one of the world's finest stages at the Minack Theatre, tries the high-octane sport of coasteering on the Lizard and fires Tudor cannons at Pendennis Castle in Falmouth.
Bundle up and endure the cold weather in this snow-filled adventure. Bob Ross paints a wintry mountain scene using only grey and white tones.
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.
Over your lifetime you undergo an extraordinary change - no other animal on earth goes through such a dramatic metamorphosis. In this programme, Chris and Xand van Tulleken explore the latest understanding of how we all grow. They uncover the reason our childhood is longer than any other creature on Earth and reveal the communities of microbes - our microbiome - that we cultivate throughout our lives. They uncover the mysterious trigger for our transformation from child to adult and, for the first time, show the remarkable spark of life that is emitted when sperm and egg first meet.
Alice Roberts embarks on a quest to discover what lies behind the passion for wild swimming, now becoming popular in Britain. She follows in the wake of Waterlog, the classic swimming text by journalist and author Roger Deakin.
Her journey takes in cavernous plunge pools, languid rivers and unfathomable underground lakes, as well as a skinny dip in a moorland pool. Along the way Alice becomes aware that she is not alone on her watery journey.
In a world of constant flux and chaos, it is almost a shock to discover some experiences remain unchanged, natural, primitive even. In the middle of London lies Hampstead Heath, 320 hectares of forest, parkland and wildlife, plus three swimming ponds.
People take their waters all year round, just as they did in the time of Constable and Keats. Capturing all the beauty of the English seasons, the film follows the swimmers over 12 months as they shiver, laugh, complain, ruminate, philosophise or simply seek respite from all that life threw at them.
Swimming Through the Seasons is a heartwarming celebration of eccentricity and sheer bloody-mindedness as these unusual people, united by a shared passion, meet to take on the weather, the water and life.
As Scotland stands on the brink of a momentous decision, Andrew Marr explores the writers who have reflected, defined and challenged Scottish national identity over the last 300 years.
Andrew examines the life of Walter Scott, a prolific novelist and poet who wrote swashbuckling tales of romance and derring-do, which sold by the bucket load, both north and south of the border. But he is less well known as a political fixer who believed in a proud Scotland inside the United Kingdom. He brought King George IV to Scotland and swathed him in tartan, helping to create an enduring myth of Scotland as a land of romance populated by a brave race doing brave deeds, all clad in the kilt. An image that centuries later, Scotland is still trying to shake.
THURSDAY 23 JULY 2020
THU 19:00 Coastal Path (b07w13bp)
Episode 4
This week Paul Rose explores the soft and rolling south Devon coastline, where he takes a snorkelling trip around Burgh Island and hitches a ride on the Dartmouth to Paignton steam train.
THU 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000l421)
Series 3
Autumn Splendour
An autumn breeze rustles in the trees as you rest your feet in crisp, still waters. Discover the joys of nature in this Bob Ross painting.
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 Emma (b00n9ltn)
Episode 2
Adaptation of the Jane Austen classic by Bafta award-winning writer Sandy Welch.
Emma continues her attempts to marry off Harriet and Mr Elton, vicar of Highbury. Although uninterested in marriage herself, she is intrigued by the mysterious and elusive Frank Churchill, who she hopes to meet for the first time at a village Christmas party. Frank does not arrive, and instead Emma becomes the subject of unwanted and embarrassing attention from Mr Elton.
A few weeks later, village gossip and speculation focuses on the arrival of young Jane Fairfax and a large piano she has been sent by a mystery admirer. Emma refuses to believe that Mr Knightley could be the secret admirer. He couldn't be, could he?
THU 21:00 Rome Unpacked (b09l64hq)
Series 1
Episode 1
To really understand Rome, you must understand its people - or the mob, as they were known in ancient times. As Giorgio Locatelli and Andrew Graham-Dixon explore Italy's iconic capital, they are in search of the generations of ordinary Romans who have left their mark on the city's culture and gastronomy.
Giorgio insists that they travel, in true Roman style, by moped. They start their journey at the Trevi fountain, immortalised in Fellini's La Dolce Vita - which itself featured countless locals as extras to capture the real faces of Rome. Giorgio leads Andrew to some of his personal favourite districts, including Garbatella, Italy's first garden suburb, with its vibrant market stalls and village architecture, and introduces him to the simplest Roman food - 'the true food of the people'. He also insists on showing him how spaghetti carbonara should really be made - 'add cream and I'll kill you'.
In turn, Andrew introduces Giorgio to some of the most moving pictures by Caravaggio, 'the painter of the people', in what was once the
city's foremost church for poor pilgrims - and they set out together to enjoy one of the great erotic masterpieces of Baroque painting. La Dolce Vita still exists, you just have to know where to find it.
THU 22:00 Rome Unpacked (b09m6bmp)
Series 1
Episode 2
Andrew Graham-Dixon and Giorgio Locatelli continue their exploration of Rome off the beaten track. In search of its Papal, Renaissance and Baroque history, they discover that it is visible all around them. In Rome, everything has been kept, from broken cooking pots from the time of the empire that piled up to form one of the city's hills to the gastronomy, art and architecture created not just by successive popes and Caesars but by ordinary Romans.
As well as marvelling at the mosaics in the 12th-century Basilica di San Clemente, Andrew takes Giorgio to its deepest basement and an ancient Roman schoolteacher's classroom. Then it is on to a true architectural and civic wonder - the vast Testaccio Slaughterhouse, where workers were once paid in offal which they took home and used as the basis of delicious dishes that are still sold in Rome today. Giorgio takes Andrew to his favourite Trippa stall to sample some of the best. Travelling to the Palazzo Colonna, Andrew in turn wants to show Giorgio just one painting - the Beaneater by Carracci, a Baroque masterpiece that makes an everyday subject extraordinary. Finally, together they discover Rome's Fascist architecture, which might have been destroyed anywhere else, but here remains standing in a city that houses all of its history. To understand the truth about the past, they argue, you have to taste all its layers - just like one of Giorgio's lasagnes.
THU 23:00 Treasures of Ancient Rome (p00wpvpr)
Warts 'n' All
Alastair Sooke traces how the Romans during the Republic went from being art thieves and copycats to pioneering a new artistic style - warts 'n' all realism. Roman portraits reveal what the great names from history, men like Julius Caesar and Cicero, actually looked like. Modern-day artists demonstrate the ingenious techniques used to create these true to life masterpieces in marble, bronze and paint.
We can step back into the Roman world thanks to their invention of the documentary-style marble relief and to a volcano called Vesuvius. Sooke explores the remarkable artistic legacy of Pompeii before showing how Rome's first emperor, Augustus, used the power of art to help forge an empire.
THU 00:00 Art, Passion & Power: The Story of the Royal Collection (b09p6mr9)
Series 1
Paradise Regained
In the year 1660, something miraculous began to happen. After the execution of Charles I, the Royal Collection had been sold off and scattered to the four winds. But now, with the restoration of Charles II, the monarchy was back. And with it their driven, sometimes obsessive, passion for art. Slowly but surely, new pieces were acquired, as others were returned out of fear of reprisal. The Royal Collection had sprung back to life.
Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the story of the Royal Collection's remarkable resurrection, following its fortunes from Charles II through to the 18th century and the enlightened purchases of George III. This is when some of the Queen's greatest treasures were collected - a magnificent silver-gilt salt cellar in the form of castle, kept in the Tower of London, a gold state coach, adorned with cherubs and tritons, and masterpieces by Vermeer, Canaletto and Leonardo da Vinci.
Andrew discovers the extraordinary peace offerings given to the 30-year-old Charles II by fearful citizens, because they had backed the Parliamentarians in the Civil War. And then there are works given by other countries, hoping to curry favour with the restored monarch - Holland gave sculptures, a yacht, a bed and a collection of paintings worth nearly £30 million in today's money, including two magnificent masterpieces by Titian that are still in the Collection.
At Windsor Castle, Andrew reveals Charles II's life of extravagance - this was a king who dined in public, as if he was a god, in an attempt to rival France's Louis XIV, the Sun King. His palace walls were hung with paintings of beautiful young women, the 'Windsor Beauties'. Even Charles's furniture speaks of excess - tables and mirrors completely covered in silver.
But Charles was also a king who bought wisely and Andrew is astonished by the recent discoveries of Royal Collection Trust conservators. Blank pages from Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks (most likely acquired in Charles II's reign) come alive under ultraviolet light, revealing drawings unseen for centuries.
Andrew shows how the Collection grew during the 18th century, despite philistine kings like George II ('I hate painting', he once shouted in his German accent). Under George III, royal collecting soared to new heights, driven by the new king's enlightened curiosity in the wider world and his desire to understand how it worked. Andrew travels to Venice to tell the story of one of the greatest purchases in the Royal Collection's history - as a young king, George III paid £20,000 to Canaletto's agent Consul Joseph Smith for a superb collection including over 50 paintings by the Venetian master.
George III, like Charles II, would be feted with gifts including the Padshahnama - an illustrated Indian chronicle of the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan (famous for commissioning the Taj Mahal). Andrew discovers the incredible painting, so delicate that it was, legend tells us, painted with brushes made with hairs taken from the necks of baby kittens. Because of his restless curiosity, by the end of his reign George III had overseen some of the greatest acquisitions in the Royal Collection's history.
THU 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.
THU 02:00 The Joy of Painting (m000l421)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 02:30 Rome Unpacked (b09l64hq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 24 JULY 2020
FRI 19:00 Coastal Path (b07wbzgt)
Episode 5
Paul Rose explores the Jurassic Coast, taking a walk through some two hundred million years of the earth's history. He uncovers prehistoric treasures in Charmouth and greets hatching signets at Abbotsbury Swannery.
FRI 19:30 Sounds of the Sixties (b0074qbw)
Original Series
1967-68: The Pop Boom
By now Top of the Pops was an established part of the pop scene, and a group's appearance on the show was essential to a single's success. With footage of the Bee Gees, the Rolling Stones and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich amongst others.
FRI 20:00 Top of the Pops (m000l424)
Jakki Brambles, Bruno Brookes and Gary Davies present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 25 December 1989 and featuring Bros, The Beautiful South and Jason Donovan.
FRI 21:00 Rodney P's Jazz Funk (m000l426)
UK rap legend Rodney P reveals how the first generation of British-born black kids was inspired by the avant-garde musical fusions of black America in the 70s to lay the foundations of modern-day multiculturalism by creating the first black British music culture with the jazz-funk movement.
Jazz funk resists any simple description. It’s a scene, not a genre; an attitude, not a sound; a movement, not a fashion. In this film – the first to deconstruct, explain and contextualise this most British of underground music genres – we show the importance of jazz funk as the very first home-grown black British music culture, a world created by the first generation of British-born black kids who were determined to make a space for self-expression that they could truly call their own. To understand how black British culture has gone on to have such deep impact on youth culture in Britain and around the world, you need to understand jazz funk.
Rodney discovers how the scene emerged out of the cultural void of the early 70s when the first generation of British-born black kids, the children of Windrush generation parents who had arrived in Britain in the 50s and 60s, were starting to come of age only to find that there was nothing to reflect their new cultural identity. They’d been born here, gone to school here and grown up in the same working-class inner-city neighbourhoods as their white friends. But it was not until they entered their teenage years that the lack of a culture that spoke to them became apparent. That all changed with the arrival of American DJ Greg Edwards, the legendary host of Capital Radio’s Soul Spectrum, one of only two radio shows that played black music on legal radio in the 70s.
As new clubs sprang up around these new sounds, the culture split into two scenes - an older and mainly white scene growing in the south east suburbs of Kent and Essex, based on the more commercial end of the soul, jazz and funk sound, and a younger, more multicultural movement in London, built around deeper and more experimental music, giving birth to a wildly creative and expressive dance culture which was both inspired by, and inspirational to, the music.
Rodney meets key musicians like Lee John, lead singer of chart-topping jazz-funk group Imagination, and Kenny Wellington, founding member of Light of the World, one of the key acts of the Brit funk movement, who were inspired by those American jazz and funk artists to create a faster, rawer and uniquely British sound which went on to influence the New Romantics and the other cultures that came out of early 80s Britain.
Morghan Khan, one of the first black British superproducers, tells Rodney that he was determined to create a roster of black British artists, and Rodney also discovers the deep bonds that emerged between young marginalised black clubbers and the underground gay scene as both communities fought to express themselves on their own terms and have their voices heard. Although the jazz-funk scene created the first commercial platform for a generation of DJs, dancers, artists and clubbers, it was eclipsed in the early 80s with the deluge of a new wave of youth culture movements. But long before the rave scene of the 80s or the global club culture of today, it was in the jazz-funk scene of the 70s that all-dayers, all-nighters, superclubs and superstar DJs first appeared.
With original performance from veteran jazz-funk dancers, dynamically cut with rare archive of their heyday, Rodney meets many of those who were at the heart of the scene - people like Cleveland Anderson, the first DJ to take London’s dancers and DJs on the road and a key mover in the alliance that the jazz-funk kids forged with the gay club scene, Carl Cox, the superstar DJ whose first gig was running a jazz-funk mobile disco, and Robert Elms, a central figure at the Blitz Club who was a soul boy before he was a New Romantic.
FRI 22:00 Hot Chocolate at the BBC (b06dl1c5)
Errol Brown, who died aged 71 in May 2015, was probably the most famous and ubiquitous black British pop star of the 70s and early 80s. He co-founded Hot Chocolate with Tony Wilson in 1970 and the band went on to have a hit every year between 1971 and 1984.
This compilation of BBC performances and rare interview extracts celebrates Errol and Hot Chocolate, showcasing their Top 10 hits alongside rarely seen early performances and cult fan favourites.
We journey through over 15 years of chart smashes showcasing all the infectious numbers - Every 1's a Winner, Emma, So You Win Again and It Started With a Kiss - and of course, The Full Monty scene-stealer You Sexy Thing, a song that was in the charts in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
There are reminders of just how many Top 10 moments they had, with Girl Crazy and No Doubt About It, the hit that got away - Mindless Boogie - and their first appearance on BBC television with Love Is Life. Hot Chocolate were that rarity, a 70s British pop band who largely wrote their own tunes and arrangements and a mixed race band who perhaps inadvertently helped foster an early sense of British multi-culturalism. In Errol, they had a frontman who was not only a great singer, songwriter and frontman, but also resolutely and undemonstratively always himself, at ease in his own skin.
FRI 23:00 Top of the Pops (m000crqx)
The Story of 1989
As the 80s concluded with Margaret Thatcher’s tenth year in power in contrast to worldwide political change, Top of the Pops provided the perfect barometer of the UK's end-of-decade uncertainty.
Top of the Pops hosted Pete Waterman’s final year of chart domination, courtesy of Jason Donovan, alongside the dawn of Madchester, a fresh front of female artists with attitude and power, an old-school duet between a 60s legend and an 80s icon, funki dreds and, yes, that pesky bunny.
Meanwhile, Radio 1’s old guard were stood down as a team of fresh-faced recruits from children’s television took up the helm of the BBC’s weekly pop warhorse, which remained torn between its sense of heritage and the emerging threat of youth TV.
The stars of the year, including Jason Donovan, Lisa Stansfield, Shaun Ryder, Chris Rea, Marc Almond, Sharleen Spiteri, Jazzie B and more, plus TOTP presenter Jenny Powell, deliver their tales of a poptastic 1989 at Television Centre as they prepare to head into the 1990s.
FRI 00:00 I Can Go for That: The Smooth World of Yacht Rock (m0005wwn)
Series 1
Episode 1
Part one of Katie Puckrik’s voyage through a halcyon period of Los Angeles studio craft when studio-based artists like The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan and Hall & Oates produced the smoothest R&B and married it to adult themes about longing, aspiration and melancholy.
In its day this music was never identified as a genre, but in the 21st century, in a nod to its finely crafted nature, it has come to be known as yacht rock. Katie’s account of yacht rock is both the soundtrack of her American teen years and a reappraisal of a critically neglected era of music, when the sophisticated smooth sounds of the West Coast were a palliative for an America in turmoil.
Starting with the forerunners of this soft sound, Katie looks at the singer-songwriters of Laurel Canyon as well as soft rock pioneers such as the band America, whose songs offered Americans an escape from economic depression at home and the enduring conflict in Vietnam abroad. Popularised by a boom in FM radio stations, this smooth, easily digestible sound found mainstream appeal. Katie argues that the pure yacht sound was born in 1976, when seasoned session musician Michael McDonald joined The Doobie Brothers. Alongside The Doobies’ mellow tracks, Steely Dan and Hall & Oates also delivered perfect studio-engineered productions that remain as escapist and indulgent a listen today as they did when they were made.
The gleaming yacht sound was in part defined by a group of session players and composers, including McDonald, who played across the range of ‘yacht’ bands, informing their specific tone and level of musicianship. In this film, one such musician, Jay Graydon, talks about the yacht phenomenon and being part of the scene back in the day. Meanwhile John Oates reveals some of the inspirations behind his hit She’s Gone. Other contributors include producer Mark Ronson and JD Ryznar, creator of internet hit the Yacht Rock Show.
FRI 01:00 The Defiant Ones (m0002fyj)
Series 1
Episode 2
In this second episode, Jimmy Lovine’s reputation as a fearless, talented and indefatigable producer is explored, along with how he reached the West Coast following a successful collaboration with Patti Smith.
He describes moving to Los Angeles to produce with Tom Petty and his secret relationship with Stevie Nicks.
Dr Dre talks about provocative songs, such as Straight Outta Compton, which were shaped by the bitter race relations in Los Angeles. NWA evolved into a force to be reckoned with, in LA and beyond. But a devastating personal loss for Dr Dre overshadowed the success.
FRI 01:45 Rodney P's Jazz Funk (m000l426)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 02:45 Hot Chocolate at the BBC (b06dl1c5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]