Dan Cruickshank travels the Nile, from magnificent Karnak to the desolate ruins of El Amarna, in search of the truth about Akhenaten, the most radical and mysterious pharaoh ever to rule Egypt, and his beautiful wife Nefertiti.
They were a golden couple, rich and all-powerful, but when Akhenaten had a personal religious conversion, it changed everything. Akhenaten decided to overturn the entire religious belief system of ancient Egypt and convert the whole nation to his own new religion. He swept aside centuries of worship of many gods and declared that there was only one god, the Sun - the 'Aten'. To the ancient Egyptians this was heresy, but as he was the pharaoh, no-one could stop him. He then built a vast new sacred city in the desert, far away from the ancient capital of Thebes, a city dedicated to the Aten, in which he and Nefertiti lived in splendour.
But, as Dan discovers, the royal couple's dreams would soon come to a tragic end. From the grand temples at Karnak, Dan traces the route of the heretic king and queen along the Nile to the site of their splendid new city at El Amarna, in Middle Egypt - now just a poignant, desolate ruin where Akhenaten and Nefertiti lived out their glorious but doomed lives.
Truly picture perfect. Bob Ross creates the illusion of a mountain on a bright day mirrored in still waters.
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.
Richard E Grant explores how modern art and the Riviera grew up together when France's Cote D'Azur became the hedonistic playground and experimental studio for the great masters of 20th-century painting. With Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso resident on the coast, other artists from Jean Cocteau to Henri Lartigue, Raoul Dufy to Fernand Leger and Francis Picabia to Sergei Diaghilev were drawn to the area.
As transatlantic liners brought America's super-rich to the region, art and celebrity became integrally intertwined as cultural gurus and multimillionaires all partied on the beach. In an era of sunshine and bathing, of cinema and fast cars, of the Ballet Russes and Monte Carlo casinos, Grant discovers the extraordinary output of what became briefly the world's creative hub.
Join Grace Dent on a televisual trip of a lifetime as she explores the sights, sounds and schedules of the great British summer. Grace’s epic journey covers everything that informs our attitudes to summertime, from the travel shows of the 60s and 70s, which first brought the world’s finest resorts into our living rooms, to Del and Rodney Trotter fooling about abroad and the high jinks of Hi-de-Hi!
She explores the influence that holiday camp staples like beauty contests and talent shows had on primetime programmes like Seaside Special, which attracted stars as iconic as Abba and Grace Jones. Away from the glitz and glamour, there’s a look at the notorious Notting Hill Carnival of 1976, where a celebration of colour ended in rioting that changed Britain’s race laws forever, and a trip to Ibiza in the 80s, where young Brits were discovering new ways of getting away from it all. Also abroad are the then-young cast of EastEnders, with a young Grant Mitchell showing how to hit the clubs of Spain in epic style – and of course, sun, sea and soap means a look at the show that really burned the BBC – Eldorado.
In the past, ex-jockey Fred Quilly took £300 from a race gang to pull a horse. He failed to stop his horse winning and is convinced the gang are out for revenge.
Timeshift presents a bank holiday celebration of the British seaside holiday experience from its Victorian origins and heyday in the 1950s to its slow decline and attempts at reinvention since.
Interviewees including Jonathan Meades, Martin Parr and Bill Pertwee explain the way that the seaside has always been the place we all visit to lose our inhibitions and reveal a different side to ourselves. We look at how our different experiences of the seaside - end of the pier shows, fearsome landladies and holiday camps - have given rise to different traditions and a nostalgia, both working-class and middle-class, for a time when life's pleasures were simpler and foreign holidays were the preserve of the very rich.
Andrew Marr looks into the life of Scotland's most bothersome poet, Hugh MacDiarmid. MacDiarmid reinvented Scots as a language for serious writing, at various times called for a Scottish fascism, tried to create an independent Scottish communist utopia, and was under surveillance by MI5 for many years. During his life he was involved in plots to capture Edinburgh Castle and steal the Stone of Destiny, but he also found time for a literary life in which he would write the most powerful poetry in Scots since the days of Robert Burns and to start a Scottish renaissance that goes on to this day.
The heart-stopping story of 'Crazy Fakhir', a Kurdish colonel in the Iraqi army and legendary bomb disposal expert who single-handedly disarmed thousands of landmines across the country with just a pocket knife and a pair of wire clippers.
Between the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the chaos and destruction wreaked by IS ten years later, Fahkir's unwavering bravery saved thousands of lives throughout Iraq. 'Hurt Locker Hero' tells Fakhir's story through the raw and visceral amateur footage captured by his soldiers on a camcorder intended for filming family occasions. Instead, it records Fakhir endlessly snipping wires, searching family homes and digging out roadside IEDs, insisting it's too dangerous to wait hours for the highly trained American bomb disposal teams to arrive.
Whilst their father and husband becomes a hero, Fahkir's wife and eight children struggle to make ends meet and worry endlessly about his safety. Fakhir will be remembered as the man who risked his life to save others -'If I fail, only I die, but if I succeed, I can save hundreds of people.'.
A trip to Rosie's favourite place - the swimming pool - ends in disaster when she decides she hates it. Emily begins to wonder if it's just that Rosie wanted to do something else. Simon goes off to take pictures of all the places they regularly visit to put together a booklet. Rosie types 'onetwoman', which Emily and Ben try to cross-reference with her iPad to figure out what it means. In the earlier timeline, Emily's academic nature and desire for answers is yielding much less success. At their first appointment with a genetics doctor, she finds him a like-minded soul who seems to view Rosie as a problem to be solved.
Simon's mum and stepdad have come to stay. They want to take Ben back down to Devon for three weeks in the summer, which causes Simon and Emily to wonder why they are not willing to take Rosie.
While Simon and Emily go on a rare night out, nana and grandad look after the kids, but when they return, they sense that something has gone wrong.
Rosie is incredibly excited - Gandalf is finally coming because there is going to be a birthday with lots of presents! It doesn't matter to Rosie that it's Ben's birthday. The extended family set off for a birthday meal.
THURSDAY 30 JULY 2020
THU 19:00 Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank (b0078z5p)
Building for Eternity
Dan Cruickshank discovers the ingenious techniques that the ancient Egyptians used to make their pyramids, temples and mummies last forever, driven by their obsession with magic and the afterlife.
The Egyptians believed they could live forever - that death was not necessarily the end. But to enjoy the afterlife depended on preserving the important things from this life - their bodies, possessions and monuments.
Dan explores how the ancient Egyptians pioneered remarkable ways of preparing for eternity. He visits the colossal, indestructible pyramids at Saqqara and Giza as well as the massive stone temple at Dendera, and examines the mummification process that allowed the Egyptians to keep their bodies intact long after death.
The religious belief in the afterlife dominated the lives and deaths of everyone in the land, and meant that hundreds of monuments were built to survive, and can now help us understand their beliefs. Above all, thousands of mummies found all over Egypt bear witness to how they thought, more than any other culture in history, that the preservation of the human body after death played a part in the everlasting survival of the spirit.
THU 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000l9rs)
Series 3
Black and White Seascape
Using a canvas painted half black and half white, Bob Ross sets the mood for a unique seascape with an approaching storm and dramatic 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.
THU 20:00 Emma (b00nfpsf)
Episode 3
Emma teases Mr Knightley about Jane but he remains tight-lipped. Meanwhile, Frank and Emma plan a ball, and Emma wonders whether she might be in love with him. Despite having a wonderful time at a village ball, she decides not.
With her matchmaking officially abandoned, Emma feels cooped up and bored, so Mr Knightley suggests a day trip to Box Hill for a change of scene and some temporary escape. He also tells Emma that he suspects Frank and Jane to be secretly in love. Emma rebuffs the suggestion - she can personally vouch for Frank's indifference to Jane - which leaves Knightley feeling hurt at Emma's indifference towards him.
THU 21:00 Becoming Jane (b00mjsdl)
Dramatised biography of the young Jane Austen, revealing how her feisty character affected her romance with a young Irishman and how the experience came to have an influence on her writing.
Whilst her parents hope for her to meet and settle with a wealthy husband of considerable social status, she much prefers a roguish Celt with whom she can match intellects and share repartee.
THU 22:50 Treasures of Ancient Rome (b01mmrn5)
Pomp and Perversion
Alastair Sooke follows in the footsteps of Rome's mad, bad and dangerous emperors in the second part of his celebration of Roman art. He dons a wetsuit to explore the underwater remains of the Emperor Claudius's pleasure palace and ventures into the cave where Tiberius held wild parties. He finds their taste in art chimes perfectly with their obsession with sex and violence.
The other side of the coin was the bombastic art the Romans are best remembered for - monumental arches and columns that boast about their conquests. Trajan's Column in Rome reads like the storyboard of a modern-day propaganda film.
Sooke concludes with the remarkable legacy of the Emperor Hadrian. He gave the world the magnificent Pantheon in Rome - the eternal image of his lover Antinous, the most beautiful boy in the history of art - and a villa in Tivoli where he created one of the most ambitious art collections ever created.
THU 23:50 Art, Passion & Power: The Story of the Royal Collection (b09q02kn)
Series 1
Palaces and Pleasuredomes
Andrew Graham-Dixon continues his exploration of the Royal Collection, the vast collection of art and decorative objects owned by the Queen. In the third episode he has reached the age of the Romantics - the flamboyant George IV who created so much of the visual look of the modern monarchy, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, for whom collecting was an integral part of their happy marriage.
As Prince of Wales, George was a famously loose cannon - a spendaholic prince whose debts ballooned in tandem with the royal waistline. But as a collector, Andrew argues, George was one of the great artistic figures of the Romantic age. His tastes were very much formed by the fallout from the French Revolution; as the great French aristocratic collections were broken up, an exodus of great art flooded into London's auction rooms - and George was there to buy them. He assembled a world-class collection of Dutch and Flemish masters, including key works by Rembrandt, Cuyp and de Hooch, as well as some of the greatest examples of French furniture ever produced, which Andrew sees in the state rooms of Buckingham Palace.
George IV was a natural showman and Andrew argues that his visit to Edinburgh in 1822 helped pioneer the modern monarchy's use of spectacle. But, like Henry VIII and Charles before him, George had the sense to partner up with an artist of genius - Sir Thomas Lawrence. The result of their collaboration is seen in a series of stirring battlefield portraits that line Windsor Castle's Waterloo Chamber.
Queen Victoria is often depicted as the uptight opposite of her louche uncle, but Andrew argues that, for her, art was just as important. This was a passion that she could share with her beloved husband, Prince Albert, who believed that learning how to make art was the best way to understand it.
Andrew visits Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, still filled with their art possessions, including marble facsimiles of the arms and legs of her infant children, commissioned by Victoria herself.
Andrew argues that Albert was a natural curator; he instilled a love for collecting in his children and compiled an early 'database' of the complete works of Raphael which he kept in his new 'print room' in Windsor Castle as a tool for art historians. But it is on the streets of South Kensington ('Albertopolis') that Andrew discovers Albert's real legacy - the museums and educational institutions here are a testimony to his vision for the area, purchased with the help of profits from the Great Exhibition.
THU 00:50 Bought with Love: The Secret History of British Art Collections (b037nhb9)
The Age of the Individual
Helen Rosslyn explores how collecting reached its maturity in the 19th century when unprecedented wealth from Britain's booming economy encouraged enlightened, philanthropic industrialists to spend their fortunes on art, and in many cases then donate their collections to the nation.
With different taste from the British aristocracy who had dominated collecting to this point, a new breed of art buyer enriched Britain's cultural story by acquiring adventurous and often avant-garde work. Helen looks at the influence of pharmaceutical magnate Thomas Holloway, the Rothschild banking dynasty and the Welsh Davies sisters.
THU 01:50 The Joy of Painting (m000l9rs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 02:20 Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank (b0078z5p)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
THU 02:50 Treasures of Ancient Rome (b01mmrn5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:50 today]
FRIDAY 31 JULY 2020
FRI 19:00 Gershwin's Summertime: The Song that Conquered the World (b017nf05)
An intriguing investigation into the extraordinary life of Gershwin's classic composition, Summertime. One of the most covered songs in the world, it has been recorded in almost every style of music - from jazz to opera, rock to reggae, soul to samba. Its musical adaptability is breathtaking, but Summertime also resonates on a deep emotional level. This visually and sonically engaging film explores the composition's magical properties, examining how this song has, with stealth, captured the imagination of the world.
From its complex birth in 1935 as a lullaby in Gershwin's all-black opera Porgy and Bess, this film traces the hidden history of Summertime, focusing on key recordings, including those by Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Mahalia Jackson, Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald. It reveals how musicians have projected their own dreams and desires onto the song, reimagining Summertime throughout the 20th century as a civil rights prayer, a hippie lullaby, an ode to seduction and a modern freedom song.
Back in the 1930s, Gershwin never dreamt of the global impact Summertime would have. But as this film shows, it has magically tapped into something deep inside us all - nostalgia and innocence, sadness and joy, and our intrinsic desire for freedom. Full of evocative archive footage as well as a myriad versions of Summertime - from the celebrated to the obscure - the film tells the surprising and illuminating tale behind this world-famous song.
FRI 20:00 Top of the Pops (m000l9th)
Review of the 80s
Mike Read and Paul Gambaccini present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 28 December 1989 and featuring Kim Wilde, Aswad and Band Aid.
FRI 21:00 Gospel according to Mica – The Story of Gospel Music in Six Songs (m000l9tk)
British soul singer Mica Paris was brought up on gospel music and sang in church from an early age. In her teens, she became an international star, singing pop and soul and having worldwide hits. Now though, Mica is curious about the origins of the songs she sang so easily as a child, why some of her contemporaries have returned to their gospel roots as well as thinking about her own faith and her own big teenage decision to leave the church and sing secular music.
Mica revisits her childhood church in Lewisham to start exploring the meaning and origins of these famous gospel songs. She examines songs such as Amazing Grace and discovers the complex reasoning behind the words. She sings with The Kingdom Choir, made famous by the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan, and travels to the cotton fields of America, where gospel was used to make the work of enslaved Africans more bearable.
She meets the choir at Fisk University in Tennessee, who formed just after slavery was abolished and sang for Queen Victoria, and finds herself overwhelmed by her emotions when she finds out how the slavery freedom fighters used gospel to communicate.
Mica also delves into the history of Sam Cooke and Thomas A Dorsey, who both encountered tragedy in and out of the church, and she sings with bluesman Jools Holland to contemporise a favourite gospel tune.
Finally, Mica comes right up to date with the music of current artists, such as Stormzy, who have no fear of church versus secular music, are open about their faith and are combining the two with great success.
FRI 22:00 The Last Pirates: Britain's Rebel DJs (b096k6g1)
In the 1980s a new generation of pirate radio stations exploded on to Britain's FM airwaves. Unlike their seafaring swinging 60s forerunners, these pirates broadcast from London's estates and tower blocks to create a platform for black music in an era when it was shut out by legal radio and ignored by the mainstream music industry.
In the ensuing game of cat and mouse which played out on the rooftops of inner-city London across a whole decade, these rebel DJs used legal loopholes and technical trickery to stay one step ahead of the DTI enforcers who were tasked with bringing them down. And as their popularity grew they spearheaded a cultural movement bringing Britain's first multicultural generation together under the banner of black music and club culture.
Presented by Rodney P, whose own career as a rapper would not have been possible without the lifeblood of pirate radio airplay, this film also presents an alternative history of Britain in the 1980s - a time of entrepreneurialism and social upheaval - with archive and music that celebrates a very different side of Thatcher's Britain.
Featuring interviews with DJs, station owners and DTI enforcers - as well as some of the engineers who were the secret weapon in the pirate arsenal - this is the untold story of how Britain's greatest generation of pirate radio broadcasters changed the soundtrack of modern Britain forever.
FRI 23:00 Classic Albums (b0bjj623)
Amy Winehouse: Back to Black
Series looking at the creation of some classic rock albums looks at Amy Winehouse's second album, 2006’s Back to Black, and how it transformed the beehived girl from north London into a global star, with hits like Rehab, the title track and Love Is a Losing Game. Back To Black helped launch a wave of soul-influenced British chanteuses including Adele and Duffy and has since sold over 20 million copies.
This film reveals Amy Winehouse the artist, focusing firmly on her lyrics, influences and vocal talents. Using unseen footage from the Miami and New York sessions and rarely seen archive of Amy in interview and performance, producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi and their respective musicians shine a light on the making of Back To Black and offer their first-hand accounts of Amy's genius and her emotional turmoil.
Featuring producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, the Dap-Kings band, Amy's colleagues and friends, Island president and A&R director Darcus Beese and Ronnie Spector.
FRI 01:35 I Can Go for That: The Smooth World of Yacht Rock (m00062g8)
Series 1
Episode 2
Katie Puckrik concludes her voyage through a golden era of Los Angeles studio crafted sounds. In this episode she charts the progress of Yacht Rock through the 1980s, when it became the soundtrack to America in the Reagan era, and when artists like Toto, Hall & Oates and George Benson created a technicolour second wave of a super smooth sound.
In its day, this music was not 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. In the MTV 80s, the bearded sensitivity that had defined the Yacht sound in the previous decade was out and, instead, bigger sounds with bombastic videos were in. Hall & Oates stepped up to the challenges of the video age with hits such as I Can’t Go For That and Private Eyes.
The gleaming Yacht sound was, in part, always defined by a group of LA-based session players and composers who worked across a range of Yacht bands, informing their specific tone and level of musicianship. Yacht session supremos Jay Graydon and Steve Porcaro reveal how they worked with George Benson, making a surprising addition to the Yacht cannon with Turn Your Love Around.
Meanwhile, Porcaro joined other LA session players to form Toto whose tracks Rosanna and Africa were two mega-hits of the early 80s. Toto’s Steve Lukather and Steve Porcaro also reveal how they even brought a little Yacht magic to the biggest-selling album in history, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, when the latter wrote the song Human Nature for the album.
Meanwhile, actor and writer JD Ryznar takes credit for inventing the Yacht badge, when he penned a satirical online drama referencing the key protagonists of Yacht. This affectionate spoof contributed to a revival of interest and enthusiasm for these mainstream sounds in the digital era and Katy’s reappraisal puts the brilliance of this group of musicians firmly back in the spotlight. Other contributors include Robbie Dupree and John Oates.
FRI 02:35 The Defiant Ones (m0002k6m)
Series 1
Episode 3
Jimmy Iovine discusses how he continued to rise up the music industry ladder via successful collaborations with Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks, and Dr Dre talks about the difficulties he faced both professionally and personally.
Jimmy talks about hitting a wall and how he considered a career shift after a particularly difficult collaboration with U2, whose tireless drive in the studio rivalled his own. By 1989, Jimmy had parlayed his production expertise into a new career as co-founder of Interscope Records, committing the label to artists such as Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Gwen Stefani and No Doubt.
Dr Dre discusses a series of calamities he experienced, including personal losses on the streets, run-ins with the law and a bitter contract dispute and clash over management that strained his relationship with Eazy-E. He talks about landing at a crossroads and looking to make a fresh start.
Series directed by Allen Hughes.
A Silverback 5150 production in association with Alcon Television Group for HBO.
Acquired by BBC Music for BBC Four.