Simon King, wildlife cameraman and Springwatch presenter, is fulfilling a boyhood dream and experiencing the Shetland Islands with his family through the changing seasons.
Simon is enjoying the islands at their best, with 19 hours of glorious sunlight, the remarkable 'simmer dim' - the Shetland term for the midnight gloaming - and a plethora of wildlife.
His expensive high-speed camera breaks, but with a little help from the locals, he manages to get it repaired and uses it to capture some wonderful footage of powerful gannets diving for fish.
He also follows an otter family's poignant separation as the one-year-old cub is pushed away by his mother to lead an independent life.
Shetland has more than lived up to Simon's expectations for wilderness and given his family an experience they will never forget. The visit ends with a sighting of a pod of killer whales, just metres away from where he is standing. A suitable end to a great trip.
Michael reaches Timbuktu along with a camel train carrying the giant salt blocks that made the city one of the greatest centres of Islamic learning up until the 16th century. He wanders through the rubble that is 21st-century Timbuktu to find the Imam who shows him original astronomical textbooks that predate Galileo's discoveries by 200 years.
Leaving one of Timbuktu's most famous addresses, the house of Alexander Laing, the Scottish explorer who had his thoat slit for not converting to Islam, Michael heads east to the land of the Wodaabe. These nomadic herders are some of the last true pastoralists of the African continent - famous as much for their male beauty pageant as their stylish cattle. Living in the bush with them, Michael watches the complex rituals surrounding this extraordinary annual pagaent, the 'Gerewol', where the girls get to choose the prettiest boy.
It is the season after the rains, a time of relative plenty for the nomads, and Michael's Wodaabe family, led by the English-speaking Doulla, travel to Ingall for the Cure Salee - a gathering of clans that takes place every year. Amidst the chaos of camel races, shopping and general mayhem, Michael meets up with a group of Tuareg for the next leg of his journey, a camel train across the Tenere desert to Algeria.
Omar introduces him to the delights and vicissitudes of life on the move in the most desolate landscape on the planet. Walking 12 hours a day, eating the odd sheep and learning the rudiments of Tamashek, the language of the Tuareg, Michael finally gets to grips with the heart and soul of the desert. The going is tough, but the sense of comradeship with both the other cameleers and the camels, who are their lifeline, is palpable.
Josephine has been blackmailed by the traffickers into defending Maria, their smuggler. Meanwhile, Ali and Laure are struggling with their new line of enquiry. How much information can they get out of their new arrest? And is there sufficient evidence to prove a link between the international smuggling operation and the murder case they are investigating?
Laure and Ali identify 'The Alsatian' and get to work on a tracking device hidden under his car by members of a rival gang. Josephine tries to help Souleymane, but her attempts fall short.
Art historian Sandrine Voillet continues her history of Paris, from its origins on a small island in the River Seine to its emergence as a hotbed of revolution. It is a story of elegant squares and romantic bridges, mean streets and sexual excess, cafes and conversation, chocolate and high fashion, guillotines and liberty.
In this episode, Sandrine meets top fashion designer Christian Lacroix, leading porn star Ovidie and rebel rap band Sniper.
An interactive service is available for digital viewers to brush up on their language skills and hear the entire programme in French.
Jakki Brambles presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 22 June 1990 and featuring Magnum, Yazz and Elton John.
Gary Davies presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 28 June 1990 and featuring Bob Geldof, Elton John and Maxi Priest.
Former Scissor Sisters singer Ana Matronic along with Martyn Ware, who was in both The Human League and Heaven 17, reveal a playlist packed with disco classics and more. Each song is hand-picked, and as they watch the performances, they reveal the reasons behind their choices.
Discover why the Scissor Sisters owe a debt to Boney M, and how Martyn Ware helped revive the career of a singing icon. From Donna Summer to the Doctor Who theme tune and The Temptations to Tina Turner, their playlist holds dance-along gems interwoven with candid stories.
SUNDAY 17 JANUARY 2021
SUN 19:00 The Victorian Slum (b08070j8)
The 1870s
In the heart of the modern East End of London, a Victorian slum has been recreated and a group of 21st-century people are moving in. Michael Mosley joins them to tell the extraordinary story of how the Victorian East End changed our attitude to poverty forever. The slum dwellers have left behind the 1860s, when London was the richest city on earth and it was hard but possible to make ends meet. Now they must live through a dire economic depression that blighted the 1870s.
Tailoring family the Howarths have become 'sweated workers', so called because of the rate at which they had to work. They must toil nonstop to make up Victorian factory orders for clothing. It is food for thought when they are forced to employ their neighbours' children to complete the work.
The Potter family can no longer rely on breadwinner Graham as he struggles to find work so they join forces with single parent Shazeda to try and get by making artificial flowers. For Heather Potter, the experience has added poignancy when she finds out the fate that befell her own poverty-stricken East End ancestors.
There are new arrivals in the slum when siblings John and Maria Barker arrive from Ireland. They are horrified by the conditions that would have greeted Irish migrants to Victorian London. But they are young, strong and have no dependents and they do have the ability to work.
As the week progresses, rent collector Andy and the shopkeepers the Birds begin to worry that some in the slum won't be able to settle their debts. A moonlit flit has a knock-on effect for all and the harsh realities of life for the Victorian poor hit home.
SUN 20:00 Caribbean with Simon Reeve (p02lbhhc)
Episode 3
Simon begins his journey on the remote Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, travels to the beautiful Honduran island of Roatan and encounters extreme violence on the mainland of Honduras, before finishing his adventure on the iconic island of Jamaica.
Nicaragua is a country on the brink of monumental change. It will soon be split in two by the world's biggest construction project: a new transoceanic waterway set to rival the Panama Canal. Simon visits the Rama-Kriol people who face losing their ancestral homes and, in the nearby town of Bluefields, he meets the city-dwellers who believe the canal will bring long-hoped-for prosperity and wealth to the country.
In Honduras, Simon dives into the crystal waters of the world's second-largest barrier reef and conducts an unusual underwater experiment in the dead of night. Back on shore, Simon discovers Hondurans living in the grip of some of the most violent criminal gangs in the world. San Pedro Sula, the country's second city, has the world's highest murder rate.
Simon's journey ends in the stunning Jamaica, where he discovers a country confronting its violent reputation head-on with a police force cracking down on corruption. Here, he spends time with young people who have rejected gang life, offering a model of hope for future generations.
SUN 21:00 Ireland to Sydney By Any Means (b00dhbf2)
Episode 1
Gritty adventurer Charley Boorman goes on one of his most daring journeys, covering three continents, 25 countries and over 20,000 miles from Ireland to Australia.
Charley gets off his bike and on to local means of transport, avoiding commercial airlines wherever possible to travel over land and sea on more than 100 different modes of transport, including container ships, dug-out canoes, solar cars and an elephant.
In the first episode, preparations are underway as Charley plans the three-month expedition. A few knock-backs, several training courses and some minor route alterations later, the three team members - Charley, producer Russ and cameraman Mungo - are ready. Starting from Charley's home in County Wicklow in Ireland, the trio rev the engines of three classic bikes before heading northwards for the shores of Kilkeel and the start of their adventure.
SUN 22:00 The Sky at Night (m000rgm1)
Pick of the Year
Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Chris Lintott look back at some of the biggest stories featured on the programme in 2020, with the help of special guests who have chosen their favourite moments.
From the launch of Solar Orbiter to the discovery of phosphine on Venus, the team relive the astronomy highlights of a highly unusual year.
SUN 22:30 Horizon (b077nl9f)
2016
The End of the Solar System
This is the story of how our solar system will be transformed by the ageing sun before coming to a spectacular end in about eight billion years. Astronomers can peer into the far future to predict how it will happen by analysing distant galaxies, stars and even planets in their final moments.
Horizon brings these predictions to life in a peaceful midwestern town that has a giant scale model of the solar system spread out all over the city. As it ages, the sun will bloat into a red giant star, swallowing planets... as well as half the town. The fate of the Earth itself hangs in the balance. How will the solar system end?
SUN 23:30 Light and Dark (b03jrxhv)
Dark
Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the story of how we went from thinking we were close to a complete understanding of the universe to realising we had seen almost none of it. Today, our best estimate is that more than 99 per cent of the cosmos is hidden in the dark, invisible to our telescopes and beyond our comprehension.
The first hints that there might be more out there than meets the eye emerged from the gloom in 1846 with the discovery of the planet Neptune. It was hard to find, because at four billion kilometres from the sun there was precious little light to illuminate it and, like 89 per cent of all the atoms in the universe, it gives off almost no light.
In the middle of the 20th century scientists discovered something even stranger - dark matter - stuff that wasn't just unseen, it was fundamentally un-seeable. In fact, to explain how galaxies are held together and how they formed in the first place, there needed to be four times as much dark matter as there was normal atomic matter.
In the late 1990s scientists trying to measure precisely how much dark matter there was in the universe discovered something even more elusive out there - dark energy, a mysterious new force driving the universe apart that is thought to make up a colossal 73 per cent of it.
Finally, Jim explores the quest to uncover the nature of dark energy and to see dark matter pull the first stars and galaxies together, a quest that involves peering into the darkest period in the cosmos's past.
SUN 00:30 Caribbean with Simon Reeve (p02lbhhc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
SUN 01:30 The Victorian Slum (b08070j8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
SUN 02:30 Ireland to Sydney By Any Means (b00dhbf2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
MONDAY 18 JANUARY 2021
MON 19:00 Fred Dibnah's Made in Britain (b0078w0c)
Castings
Documentary series in which Fred Dibnah travels around Britain in his restored traction engine in search of engineering skills and technology from a bygone age, visiting ancient iron foundries, industrial sites and little workshops.
Fred and his steersman Alf travel up to Scotland, where they marvel at the ingenuity of the Falkirk Wheel and visit one of the few surviving traditional iron works left in the region. After stopping at Bo'ness and Kinneil Railway for a few repairs, they're ready for the off and the traction engine becomes the first to cross the Forth Road Bridge under its own steam.
MON 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000r6ht)
Winter Specials
A Warm Winter
Travel into the unknown with Bob Ross and discover in an oval painting the beauty of a lovely cabin, a fresh snowfall and warm, colourful skies.
MON 20:00 Secrets of the Museum (m000f9b2)
Series 1
Episode 2
Behind the scenes at the Victoria and Albert Museum, priceless Raphael paintings give up their secrets. Keeper James gets hands-on with Beyonce’s ring and Queen Victoria’s coronet.
MON 21:00 Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema (m000rgmw)
Series 3
Pop Music Movies
Mark looks at a genre that combines his twin passions, music and movies. Pop movies encompass many forms, from drama and comedy to fantasy and documentary, producing some of the most potent and emotive moments in popular culture.
There’s the classic pop star vehicle, where the biggest acts play themselves, or a version of themselves, in exuberant films that promote their brand and help sell their music. Then there are pop biopics, dramatised accounts of the stars’ lives that dazzle us with musical set pieces while playing on our fascination with the darker side of fame. Even rock documentaries, or 'rockumentaries', feature recurring themes and situations, both on and off stage. Mark also sees what happens when actors play musicians, and when musicians take on acting roles, and he celebrates some of the true cinematic oddities that have come from pop stars putting their wildest ideas on screen.
Rebellion, romance, anarchy, excitement. Mark shows how the fusion of pop music and movies has been a double act like no other.
MON 22:00 A Hard Day's Night (b0074q9m)
Anarchic and offbeat 1960s story of 36 hours in the lives of The Beatles, as they travel to a TV show in London. The film uses a variety of cinematographic styles including documentary, surrealism and neorealism to create one of the milestone pictures of the decade.
MON 23:25 The World's Most Photographed (b0078y3p)
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria's accession to the throne in 1837 coincided almost exactly with the invention of photography. She would be the first woman in the world to live both her private and public lives in front of the camera.
At first, photography was a private pleasure, a way of capturing images of herself and her family for their own personal amusement. But during the course of her 64-year reign, Queen Victoria began to use the camera as a political weapon. The new art of photography was a vital tool in Victoria's battle to safeguard the British throne. It was a means to quell the forces of republicanism, a way to win the affection and sympathy of her people and an opportunity to establish her as the defining symbol of British imperial power.
By the time Queen Victoria died in 1901, photography had transformed the relationship between the monarchy and the people. The private life of the monarch was more visible to more people than ever before. But Victoria still managed to take one photographic secret to the grave.
MON 23:55 Victorian Sensations (m0005hhg)
Series 1
Decadence and Degeneration
The 1890s was the decade when science, entertainment, art and morality collided - and the Victorians had to make sense of it all. Actor Paul McGann discovers how the works of HG Wells, Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde were shaped by fears of moral, social and racial degeneration.
Paul, seated in Wells’s time machine, sees how the author’s prophecies of a future in which humanity has decayed and degenerated highlighted the fears of the British Empire. Paul finds out how these anxieties were informed by new scientific theories based on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Paul learns how Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton sought to improve the genetic stock of the nation, through a project he coined as ‘eugenics’.
Another of the decade’s prominent scientific thinkers – Austrian physician Max Nordau – declared that it was art and culture, and their practitioners – the aesthetes and decadents – that were causing Britain’s moral degeneration, singling out Oscar Wilde as the chief corrupting influence. Paul explains how Wilde sought to subvert traditional Victorian values. Tucked away in one of Wilde’s haunts - the famous Cheshire Cheese Pub on Fleet Street - Paul hears from Stephen Calloway about how Aubrey Beardsley – the most decadent artist of the period – scandalised society, in much the same way as Wilde, through his erotic drawings. Wilde and Beardsley were not alone in being parodied by Punch Magazine. Historian Angelique Richardson shows Paul caricatures of a new figure who had begun to worry the sensibilities of Victorian Britain. Known collectively as The New Woman, this was a group of female writers, who in more than 100 novels, portrayed a radical new idea of femininity that challenged the conventions of marriage and motherhood. However, as Paul discovers through reading a short story called Eugenia by novelist Sarah Grand, some advocated the idea of eugenics through their writing.
For eugenicists, if one means of keeping a ‘degenerate’ working class in check was incarceration, then that either meant prison or, increasingly by the 1890s, the asylum. Some lost their freedom due to ‘hereditary influence’, others to so-called sexual transgression. Paul explains how the ‘vice’ of masturbation was seen as sapping the vitality of the nation. The idea of sexual transgression was to intrude into the Victorian consciousness as never before when, in 1895, Oscar Wilde was found guilty of gross indecency and sentenced to two years in jail.
While Oscar Wilde had made a very public show of defiance, Paul uncovers another leading – and gay - writer of the period, John Addington Symonds, who together with the prominent physician Havelock Ellis, sought to produce a scientific survey of homosexuality. At the London Library, Symonds expert Amber Regis shows Symonds’s rare handwritten memoirs to Paul, which served as a source for the groundbreaking 1897 work, Sexual Inversion. Paul explains how questions of sex and gender also lie at the heart of a very different book, published in the same year - Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Paul explains how Stoker had his finger – or teeth – on the pulse of the 1890s, infusing his novel with many of the decade’s chief preoccupations and growing fears of racial prejudice and immigration.
Paul also meets Natty Mark Samuels (founder of the Oxford African School) reciting a speech by a young West Indian called Celestine Edwards, who took a brave stand against imperial rule and its racist underpinnings. Edwards became the first black editor in Britain, and his pioneering work would be continued by a fellow West Indian, Henry Sylvester Williams, who in 1897 formed the African Association. Outside the former Westminster Town Hall, Paul describes how, in 1900, Williams set up the first Pan-African Conference to promote and protect the interests of all subjects claiming African descent.
MON 00:55 Handmade in Mexico (b09j2vvr)
Series 1
Tree of Life
The Tree of Life is a clay sculpture originally intended to teach Bible stories to indigenous people. Overall, the tree sculpture looks something like a candelabra, and traditionally consists of biblical images and narratives, such as Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden. Tree of Life sculpture is emblematic of Puebla State, where it began. Some modern designs - always brightly painted - sometimes include secular or fantastical imagery.
MON 01:25 The Joy of Painting (m000r6ht)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
MON 01:50 Fred Dibnah's Made in Britain (b0078w0c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
MON 02:20 Secrets of the Museum (m000f9b2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
TUESDAY 19 JANUARY 2021
TUE 19:00 Fred Dibnah's Made in Britain (b0078w3r)
Water and Boilers
Documentary series in which Fred Dibnah travels around Britain in his restored traction engine in search of engineering skills and technology from a bygone age, visiting ancient iron foundries, industrial sites and little workshops.
Fred visits Ryhope pumping station in Sunderland and meets the volunteers who maintain the museum, travels across the Middlesborough transporter bridge and sees the Israel Newton boiler works in Bradford.
TUE 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000r6jc)
Winter Specials
Winter's Grace
Enter into the realm of the far north with American painter Bob Ross and view at first hand the glory of a cold, snow-blanketed, wintertime landscape scene.
TUE 20:00 Inside Obama's White House (b0760yhq)
Don't Screw It Up
Episode three explores how Barack Obama set out to end George Bush's wars in the Middle East and reset relations with the rest of the world. In Cairo he speaks to the Arab world, calling democracy a human right. Two years later when protest erupts in Tahrir Square, the president is torn between secretary of state Hillary Clinton and defense secretary Robert Gates, who believe Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak provides regional stability, and his young advisors, who are in tune with the promise of the Arab Spring. Before long, a similar test arises in Libya, Hillary Clinton changes her position to back military intervention and Obama agrees to join allies in airstrikes against Colonel Gaddafi.
In Syria, when shocking evidence shows the use of chemical weapons, Obama decides to bomb. But when the British Parliament votes against intervention, he decides he needs the backing of a reluctant Congress. Foreign secretary William Hague explains why the British parliament voted against intervention in 2013 and President Obama explains why he then decided to seek the backing of Congress.
This episode also explores how Obama scored a big win when he negotiated a secret deal to end the nuclear threat from Iran - behind the backs of his closest allies. Secretary of state John Kerry tells how he worked through the night, with President Obama on the phone, to secure the outlines of the deal.
TUE 21:00 'Til Kingdom Come: Trump, Faith and Money (m000rgnz)
Millions of American evangelicals are praying for the state of Israel. Among them are the Binghams, a dynasty of Kentucky pastors, and their evangelical congregants in an impoverished coal mining town. They donate sacrificially to Israel’s foremost philanthropic organisation, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, because they fervently believe the Jews are crucial to Jesus’s return.
This film traces this unusual relationship, from rural Kentucky to the halls of government in Washington, through the moving of the American Embassy in Jerusalem to the annexation plan for the West Bank.
With unparalleled access, the film exposes a stunning backstory of the Trump and Netanyahu administrations, where financial, political and messianic motivations intersect with the apocalyptic world-view that is insistently reshaping American foreign policy toward Israel and the Middle East.
TUE 22:10 Timeshift (b00djlz9)
Series 8
How to Be a Good President
In a whistlestop tour through the history of the US presidency, journalist and author Jonathan Freedland asks what qualities make a great president and what we can learn from the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, JFK or even Richard Nixon about what it takes to make a mark in the White House.
Freedland is helped by distinguished contributors, including James Naughtie, Shirley Williams, Douglas Hurd, Simon Hoggart and Bonnie Greer, who give frank assessments of some of America's greatest presidents.
TUE 23:10 Barack Obama Talks to David Olusoga (m000q1g1)
In a UK exclusive, former American president Barack Obama encounters historian David Olusoga to discuss his long-awaited memoir A Promised Land, his reflections on the volatile racial divide in the US, his steadfast refusal to abandon American ideals, and how the sight of a black president and black first family in the White House may have cast a spotlight on the depth of racial fault lines in America.
TUE 23:40 Spiral (p091v6yy)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Saturday]
TUE 00:35 Spiral (p091v6z4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:55 on Saturday]
TUE 01:35 The Joy of Painting (m000r6jc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
TUE 02:00 Fred Dibnah's Made in Britain (b0078w3r)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
TUE 02:30 Inside Obama's White House (b0760yhq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 20 JANUARY 2021
WED 19:00 Fred Dibnah's Made in Britain (b0078w6r)
The Road to Steel City
Documentary series in which Fred Dibnah travels around Britain in his restored traction engine in search of engineering skills and technology from a bygone age, visiting ancient iron foundries, industrial sites and little workshops.
Fred fulfils an ambition by driving across the imposing Scammonden Bridge over the M62. He and Alf also visit the steel city of Sheffield to take a tour round a fascinating forge and watch crucible steel being produced by experts Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet.
WED 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000r6gk)
Winter Specials
Winter's Peace
Bob Ross paints a warm, elegant snow-kissed scene, with a little cabin snuggled deeply in the embrace of foothills, bushes and evergreen trees.
WED 20:00 Queen Victoria's Children (b01pp9dg)
A Domestic Tyrant
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert shared a passionate marriage. Behind closed doors, royal domestic life often seemed like a battlefield.
In a 60-year family saga this new three-part series explores the reign of Victoria through her personal relationships with her husband and her nine children. It is a story of manipulation, conflict, intimidation, emotional blackmail, and fevered attempts by her children to escape the clutches of their domineering and needy mother.
The series uses a wealth of written material and photos left by Victoria, Albert and their children, including letters, diaries, memoirs and journals, to bring the subject and characters to life.
This episode concentrates on Victoria's relationship with her daughters. It looks at how, after Albert's death, Victoria clung to and bullied them and arranged their marriages. In response the princesses fought back, becoming independent women determined to find love and fresh purpose. From sculpture to medicine, the daughters became champions of women for a new era.
WED 21:00 Victoria and Abdul (m000h9xb)
Period drama. Adbul Karim is whisked from his clerk's job at an Accra prison to present a ceremonial coin to Queen Victoria for her golden jubilee, along with his more reluctant companion Mohammed. The queen, who is tired of her fawning courtiers, takes a liking to the young man and developing a fascination with all things Indian, promotes him to become her Munshi, or teacher, much to the resentment of her family and household.
WED 22:45 Judi Dench: All the World's Her Stage (b086khvq)
An intimate portrait of Judi Dench, one of the most outstanding and best-loved British actors of all time, told by some of the biggest names in entertainment - Daniel Craig, Stephen Frears, Pierce Brosnan, Samantha Bond and Sir Ian McKellen.
WED 23:45 The Sky at Night (m000rgm1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Sunday]
WED 00:15 Night on Film: An A-Z of the Dark (b018jl97)
An alphabetical look at the dark, featuring everything from bats to vampires. The night comes alive in this unusual mixture of music and archive.
WED 01:15 The Joy of Painting (m000r6gk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
WED 01:40 Fred Dibnah's Made in Britain (b0078w6r)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
WED 02:10 Queen Victoria's Children (b01pp9dg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THURSDAY 21 JANUARY 2021
THU 19:00 Fred Dibnah's Made in Britain (b0078wb3)
Mechanics and Riveters
Documentary series in which Fred Dibnah travels around Britain in his restored traction engine in search of engineering skills and technology from a bygone age, visiting ancient iron foundries, industrial sites and little workshops. Fred stops off at Andy Thornton's, a company that makes ornate carvings, moves on to Worsborough to have a go at making hot forge rivets, then travels down to Derbyshire to visit the Midland Railway Centre.
THU 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000rgnv)
Winter Specials
A Copper Winter
Step into a snow-covered forest with Bob Ross, in a scene gently warmed by the beauty of winter’s rustic touches of colour.
THU 20:00 The Bermuda Triangle: Beneath the Waves (b007c68n)
Professor Bruce Denardo attempts to prove whether there is any truth behind the legend of the Bermuda Triangle, where many ships and planes have disappeared in mysterious circumstances. New investigation techniques reveal the truth behind the infamous disappearance of Flight 19. Graham Hawkes is also able to reveal, by using a state-of-the-art submarine, how five wrecks mysteriously wound up 730 feet down in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle.
THU 21:00 All the President's Men (m000rgnx)
In the early 1970s, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the Watergate scandal - a conspiracy to cover up abuses of power leading all the way to the Oval Office and eventually to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
THU 23:10 Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema (m000rgmw)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
THU 00:10 'Til Kingdom Come: Trump, Faith and Money (m000rgnz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
THU 01:30 The Joy of Painting (m000rgnv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 01:55 Fred Dibnah's Made in Britain (b0078wb3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
THU 02:25 The Bermuda Triangle: Beneath the Waves (b007c68n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
FRIDAY 22 JANUARY 2021
FRI 19:00 Sound of Musicals with Neil Brand (b0888r7n)
Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'
Series in which composer Neil Brand explores how musical theatre evolved over the last 100 years to become today's global phenomenon. Neil hears the inside story from leading composers and talent past and present, and recreates classic songs, looking in detail at how these work musically and lyrically to captivate the audience.
In the first episode, Neil finds out how the modern shape of the musical was established through a series of pioneering works, from Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's Show Boat in the 1920s with its bold take on America's racial divide and innovative use of songs that further the narrative, to Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's My Fair Lady, which made a star of Julie Andrews in the late 1950s. Neil also reveals the songwriting secrets of some much-loved numbers, including Ol' Man River, Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin', and If I Loved You.
FRI 20:00 Top of the Pops (m000rgm4)
Nicky Campbell presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 5 July 1990 and including performances by Inspiral Carpets, Double Trouble and Massivo featuring Tracy.
FRI 20:30 Top of the Pops (m000rgm6)
Anthea Turner presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 12 July 1990 and featuring Elton John, The Stone Roses and Gun.
FRI 21:00 Neil Diamond at the BBC (m000rgm8)
A look back over the decades at some of the brightest and best BBC moments from legendary singer-songwriter Neil Diamond. This compilation features performances from the early 1970s of hits like Sweet Caroline, Forever in Blue Jeans and Solitary Man, and appearances on a range of BBC programmes including Wogan, The Shirley Bassey Show, Later... with Jools Holland and, of course, Top of the Pops.
Alongside all the hits are some rarely seen interview clips that capture Neil’s feelings about his enduring career and show how his dislike of fame has always sat in conflict with his passion for performing the songs that he and his fans love so much.
FRI 22:00 Glastonbury (b00cskgk)
2008
Neil Diamond
The teatime set by the US singer-songwriter Neil Diamond on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury 2008. Including classic songs such as I'm a Believer, Sweet Caroline and Red Red Wine, plus a couple of numbers from his recent No 1 album Home Before Dark.
FRI 22:30 Electric Proms (b00vzzsw)
2010
Neil Diamond
Neil Diamond in concert from London's Roundhouse with his six-piece band performing tracks from his 2010 album Dreams, which explores the 60s and 70s songs he loves, and reinventing his classics. This is Neil Diamond stripped down with strings in his most intimate performance for years.
FRI 23:35 ...Sings Neil Diamond (b00vzzsy)
A compilation from the BBC archive of performances featuring songs written by, or associated with, Neil Diamond. Featuring Lulu, UB40, Vince Hill, Robert Wyatt, Gladys Knight, Urge Overkill, Lena Zavaroni, The Hollies and a duet by Neil Diamond and Shirley Bassey.
FRI 00:05 The Joy of Easy Listening (b011g614)
In-depth documentary investigation into the story of a popular music genre that is often said to be made to be heard but not listened to. The film looks at easy listening's architects and practitioners, its dangers and delights, and the mark it has left on modern life.
From its emergence in the 50s to its heyday in the 60s, through its survival in the 70s and 80s and its revival in the 90s and beyond, the film traces the hidden history of a music that has reflected society every bit as much as pop and rock - just in a more relaxed way.
Invented at the dawn of rock 'n' roll, easy listening has shadowed pop music and the emerging teenage market since the mid-50s. It is a genre that equally soundtracks our modern age, but perhaps for a rather more 'mature' generation and therefore with its own distinct purpose and aesthetic.
Contributors include Richard Carpenter, Herb Alpert, Richard Clayderman, Engelbert Humperdinck, Jimmy Webb, Mike Flowers, James Last and others.
FRI 01:35 Neil Diamond at the BBC (m000rgm8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 02:35 Sound of Musicals with Neil Brand (b0888r7n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]