Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson joins the Philharmonia for his hotly anticipated Proms debut. Here his skills are on display in JS Bach’s intricate Keyboard Concerto in F minor along with Mozart’s stormy Piano Concerto in C Minor.
Josie d’Arby presents Víkingur's performance from the Royal Albert Hall, which is bookended by two Russian masterpieces – Prokofiev’s bijou First Symphony and Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony.
2. Julia - The First Year
It’s 1979 and Julia’s first year living as a woman, before the NHS psychiatrist in charge of her case makes a decision on whether to allow gender reassignment surgery.
3. Julia - My Body, My Choice
In 1980, Julia Grant's attempt to obtain permission for gender reassignment surgery stalls after a year of seeing the NHS psychiatrist who can sanction the operation. She determines to seek help elsewhere.
Nature's Turtle Nursery: Secrets from the Nest features the extraordinary natural history event of an 'arribada' - the mass nesting phenomenon of olive ridley sea turtles in Costa Rica, Central America.
Dr George McGavin joins a team of international scientists as they investigate the complete story from the moment the female turtles gather offshore, then lay their eggs, to when the next generation are born.
The programme embraces the larger conservation story of these ancient mariners and how they're adapting to our ever-changing world. And in a scientific first, the complete story inside a single turtle nest is revealed, using recent scientific discoveries and the latest technological advances. An egg-to-egg turtle talk is listened in on, adult females on their migration are tracked, and behaviour under the waves is analysed with a turtle shell-mounted camera. How tiny turtles behave as they hatch out of their shells and work together to dig upwards is also revealed.
A loggerhead turtle journeys across the Pacific, meeting dolphins and whales, sharks and giant squids, and typhoons and fishermen along the way. She swims over deep canyons, and uses underwater mountain tops like motorway service stations.
Blue whales thunder by like juggernauts, and sharks dance a beautiful midnight ballet around her. Pacific means peaceful, but it is clearly not. One minute she is under fire from marlin, the next swimming over a coral reef, with crocodiles as well as sharks.
David Owen Norris takes us on a journey through 60 years of BBC archive to showcase some of the greatest names in the history of the piano. From the groundbreaking BBC studio recitals of Benno Moiseiwitsch, Solomon and Myra Hess in the 1950s, through the legendary concerts of Vladimir Horowitz and Arthur Rubinstein, to more recent performances, including Alfred Brendel, Mitsuko Uchida and Stephen Hough, David celebrates some of the greatest players in a pianistic tradition which goes back to Franz Liszt in the 19th century. Filmed at the Cobbe Collection, Hatchlands Park.
MONDAY 16 AUGUST 2021
MON 19:00 The Joy of Painting (m000ngbw)
Series 3
Meadow Brook
Bob Ross paints an innocent creek, slicing its way across a landscape of colour, in a setting dreams are made of.
MON 19:30 Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village (b0bsrqbz)
Series 1
South West
Archaeologist Ben Robinson explores the Cornish fishing village of Port Isaac. Behind the quaint facade lies something far more gritty - a place where people exploited a range of natural resources, on land and at sea, to make a living and find profits far beyond Britain's shores.
MON 20:00 Painting the Holy Land (b09y1vzs)
Series 1
Episode 2
Lachlan Goudie traces the story of Mary through the gospels with a personal question - why is the life of the Mother of God barely described in the Bible, but so well-represented in art?
He looks at her role in the story of the Resurrection and the subsequent events up to Pentecost, fifty days after Easter. In Nazareth he visits the well where legend states the teenage Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel, and at one of seventeen Churches of the Annunciation sees the wealth of imagery that has helped secure for Mary a place in the hearts of the faithful. In Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, now in a grotto beneath the Church of the Nativity, he watches and draws pilgrims from all over the world.
Lachlan grew up hearing the Easter story from his Catholic mother. Taking his easel with him, he visits the places in the Holy Land most associated with Mary, seeing places and meeting people he knows his mother would enjoy, and carrying religious images drawn by his painter father to the source.
During this journey Lachlan discovers that Mary and her miraculous story are inspiring not just to Christians. Mary the Mother of Jesus is a major figure to Muslims, the only woman named in the Koran.
Part travelogue, part spiritual quest, part artistic exploration, this series transports the viewer visually and emotionally as Lachlan challenges himself to capture the look and feel of the Holy Land and the Bible story.
MON 21:00 Time and Again (m000g2w0)
Welsh acting legend Dame Siân Phillips stars alongside Brigit Forsyth in this award-winning drama written and directed by Cardiff-based film-maker Rachel Dax. Having been screened internationally at film festivals, this is the television premiere.
Time and Again is a heart-wrenching and uplifting tale of two young women separated by society.
MON 21:30 Against the Law (p057nmkt)
2017 sees the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which decriminalised homosexual acts in England and Wales between adult males, in private. While it would take several decades before homosexuals would reach anything like full equality in this country, this legislation marks the beginning of this journey.
But the dramatic events that led to this Act took place over ten years before and are at the heart of Against the Law, a powerful factual drama starring Daniel Mays and Mark Gatiss. Mays plays Peter Wildeblood, a thoughtful and private gay journalist whose lover, under pressure from the authorities, turned Queen's evidence against him in one of the most explosive court cases of the 1950s - the infamous Montagu Trial. Wildeblood and his friends, Lord Montagu and Michael Pitt-Rivers, were found guilty of homosexual offences and jailed. But the public thought the trial unfair and forced a reluctant government to set up a committee to investigate whether homosexuality should be legalised. The committee was led by Sir John Wolfenden. With his career in tatters and his private life painfully exposed, Peter Wildeblood began his sentence a broken man, but he emerged from Wormwood Scrubs a year later determined to do all he could to change the way these draconian laws against homosexuality impacted the lives of men like him. He was the only openly gay man to testify before the Wolfenden committee about the brutal reality of being gay in this country at that time. In 1957 the committee recommended that the laws be changed. It would take a further ten years before these recommendations became law.
Woven through this powerful drama is testimony from a chorus of men who lived through those dark days, when homosexuals were routinely imprisoned or forced to undergo chemical aversion therapy in an attempt to cure them of their 'condition'. There is also testimony from a retired police officer whose job it was to enforce these laws and a former psychiatric nurse who administered the so-called cures. All these accounts amplify the themes of the drama and help to immerse us in the reality of a dark chapter in our recent past, a past still within the reach of living memory.
MON 22:55 Queers (p057t5dm)
Series 1
The Man on the Platform
In the first of eight short monologues written in response to the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act, a young man returning from the trenches of the First World War recollects a love that dared not speak its name.
MON 23:15 Queers (b08zz5pp)
Series 1
A Grand Day Out
In 1994, as the government votes on lowering the age of male homosexual consent, 17-year-old Andrew comes to London for the first time - with unexpected results.
MON 23:35 Queers (b08zz70k)
Series 1
More Anger
Actors can easily feel typecast. But it's 1987, and with Aids hitting the headlines a promising new part looks like a game-changer for Phil.
MON 23:55 Queers (b08zz70m)
Series 1
Missing Alice
Alice and her husband share a secret, but with the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957 it may not need to be a secret anymore.
MON 00:15 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 00:45 Fabric of Britain (b03c2766)
The Wonder of Embroidery
The Reformation in England witnessed the destruction of the most brilliant art of the medieval age. Church paintings and stained glass - even sculpture - were destroyed throughout England in the name of religion. And yet one art survived against the odds - the art of medieval embroidery.
Portable and easily squirrelled away, English embroidery was spirited out of the country in the 16th century and many brilliant examples survive today - if slightly unappreciated and forgotten in Italian churches and museums, even the Vatican. And yet it is an art form that rivalled the very finest in medieval painting or stained glass and for 200 years was the finest embroidery in the western world. Known simply as Opus Anglicanum (English work), the work of English embroiders was desired by kings and popes throughout Christendom.
Dan Jones, Plantagenet expert and medievalist, goes in search of these fragile yet stunning survivors from the great age of embroidery - encountering a world of finery, bejewelled luxury and sacred beauty on an undreamt-of scale.
MON 01:45 Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village (b0bsrqbz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
MON 02:15 Painting the Holy Land (b09y1vzs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
TUESDAY 17 AUGUST 2021
TUE 19:00 The Joy of Painting (m000ng7p)
Series 3
Evening Sunset
The day’s sun is almost gone, but Bob Ross finds what’s left of it in an unusual blend of late afternoon tones.
TUE 19:30 Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village (b0bsrqm9)
Series 1
East
Archaeologist Ben Robinson explores Lavenham in Suffolk, the best-preserved medieval village in the country. In the 16th century, Lavenham was one of the wealthiest places in England, becoming rich on its woollen cloth industry, but the industry declined and the wealthy abandoned Lavenham. By the 19th century it was a place of poverty, but today it is once more a jewel of a village.
TUE 20:00 The Good Life (b00781x8)
Series 2
Just My Bill
Seventies sitcom about a self-sufficient couple in suburbia. Tom finds marketing his garden produce more difficult than he thought, especially when the rates are due.
TUE 20:30 The Good Life (m000yw8m)
Series 2
The Guru of Surbiton
Comedy about a couple trying to live self-sufficiently in Surbiton. Tom's philosophy of life attracts two young disciples - but not permanently, he hopes.
TUE 21:00 Write Around the World with Richard E Grant (p09nlfbm)
Series 1
Episode 3
Book and travel lover Richard E Grant journeys to Andalucia, visiting Granada, the Alpujarras, the Taja Gorge, Almuñécar and Marbella, in the footsteps of writers inspired by the country, its culture and history.
Reading key passages from their books as he goes along, including works by Federico García Lorca, Ernest Hemingway, Laurie Lee and JG Ballard, Richard not only learns about the lives of these great authors, but also experiences many of the places immortalised in the literary classics they created.
TUE 22:00 Face to Face (m000yw8p)
JG Ballard
In one of a series of occasional revivals of the BBC's classic Face to Face series, first broadcast in 1989, Jeremy Isaacs talks to science writer JG Ballard about his life, writing and fascination with the violence of the 20th century.
TUE 22:30 Steve McQueen: The Man and Le Mans (m000gg35)
Gripping documentary that goes on a nerve-tingling ride with one of the greatest film stars of all time.
In 1970, Steve McQueen set out to make ‘the ultimate racing movie’. It would be called Le Mans. He would lose his marriage, close friendships and control of his film, and risk lives in the process.
This is a story of obsession, betrayal and vindication, as a superstar risked everything in the pursuit of his dream.
TUE 00:05 Handmade in Mexico (b09jj0k2)
Series 1
Alebrijes
Alebrijes are brightly coloured, fantastical creatures, carved from copal wood and decorated in extremely detailed paintwork. Different animals and their characteristics are associated with different birth dates, and the patterns are full of symbols and meaning. Consequently, the sculpture contains often complex and personal narratives.
TUE 00:35 Opera Italia (b00sjdmp)
Beginnings
Three-part series tracing the history of Italian opera presented by Antonio Pappano, world-renowned conductor and music director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The series features sumptuous music, stunning Italian locations and some of the biggest names in opera as contributors.
In the first programme, Pappano takes a whistle-stop tour of the beginnings of opera, from Monteverdi to Rossini. He also looks at the works of two non-Italian composers, Handel and Mozart, both of whom were pivotal in the development of the art form. Along the way he enlists the help of some of the world's greatest singers - Juan Diego Florez, Joyce DiDonato, Danielle de Niese, Sarah Connolly and Pietro Spagnoli.
TUE 01:35 Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village (b0bsrqm9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
TUE 02:05 Write Around the World with Richard E Grant (p09nlfbm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 18 AUGUST 2021
WED 19:00 The Joy of Painting (m000ng9p)
Series 3
Mountain View
Bob Ross’s technique is at its best as he paints a rugged group of mountains peering down on nature’s lovely greenery.
WED 19:30 Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village (b0bsrqj7)
Series 1
London
Archaeologist Ben Robinson explores London, the ultimate 'city of villages'. Despite many rural settlements like Hornsey and Dagenham being swallowed up by the expanding capital, Hampstead residents successfully fought to preserve their village heritage. And in recent years Londoners have created a new breed of urban villages like Crouch End and Walthamstow.
WED 20:00 Earth from Space (p072n8m0)
Series 1
Changing Planet
Cameras in space tell stories of life on our planet from a brand new perspective. At a time when the Earth’s surface is changing faster than ever in human history, watch cities grow, forest disappear and glaciers melt. In the ever-growing grey of cities one man is feeding thousands of parakeets; in Sumatra a female orang-utan and her daughter face life in a forest under threat; while in Tanzania local people use satellites to replant a forest, securing the future for a family of chimpanzees. This is our home as we’ve never seen it before.
WED 21:00 The Planets (p06qj389)
Series 1
Into the Darkness: Ice Worlds
In the final episode, Professor Brian Cox journeys to the remotest part of the solar system, a place that the most mysterious planets call home. These worlds remain shadowy for a simple reason. Beyond Saturn, we have only ever visited the most distant planets once.
Uranus – barely visible to the naked eye - was once thought to be the furthest planet from the Sun. But with the telescope and some careful viewing we discovered it had a companion: Neptune. Thanks to a rare alignment of the planets in 1976, Voyager 2 was sent for our only fly-by of these ice worlds. There we discovered far more vibrant planets than we ever imagined. Even at such cold temperatures, great storms whip around these frozen worlds that are home to spectacular moons and intricate ring systems. After a few hours of observation at each planet, Voyager 2 left them behind. We have never returned.
For decades that was as far as we got, until 2015 when Nasa’s New Horizons probe pushed the frontier even further into space. with its extraordinary passage to the dwarf planet Pluto. Once again, all our assumptions about this distant world were wrong. Pluto is alive with ice volcanoes, dunes, and geysers - even a subsurface ocean. What’s more, we discovered that Pluto isn’t alone out there - there is a plethora of weird icy companions, which are redefining everything we thought we knew about the strange, distant reaches of our solar system.
WED 22:00 Missions (p09mzz7n)
Series 2
Architects
French sci-fi drama series. Emotional reactions threaten age-old plans, while under the Martian dust a deadly discovery is made. In French with English subtitles.
WED 22:25 Missions (p09n00zg)
Series 2
Singularity
French sci-fi drama series. Violent encounters limit options for the crew caught in a clash of wills. Not everyone will be going home. In French with English subtitles.
WED 22:50 Space Dive (b01nts6t)
Base jumper Felix Baumgartner embarks on an historic journey to the edge of space. His mission is to complete the highest and fastest free-fall ever, becoming the first person to skydive through the sound barrier. But he can't do it alone. The man who has held the record for over 50 years, retired Colonel Joe Kittinger, will train Felix to overcome his fears and break the record he set as a test pilot taking one of mankind's first steps towards space.
WED 00:20 Opera Italia (b00sm18t)
Viva Verdi
Three-part series tracing the history of Italian opera presented by Antonio Pappano, conductor and music director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The series features sumptuous music, stunning Italian locations and some of the biggest names in opera as contributors.
The second episode focuses on Verdi, whose operas are central to Pappano's conducting repertoire and the backbone of the international opera scene. It shows how Verdi's music was influenced by composers such as Bellini and particularly Donizetti, whose gothic masterpiece Lucia di Lammermoor is explored with the help of soprano Diana Damrau.
Pappano looks at six of Verdi's most famous works - Nabucco, Rigoletto, Don Carlo, Otello, Falstaff and La Traviata, the last of which Pappano rehearses and conducts at the Royal Opera House with the starry cast of Renee Fleming, Joseph Calleja and Thomas Hampson.
Pappano travels to Le Roncole in northern Italy where Verdi was born amidst a turbulent political environment, and politics became a major influence on Verdi's operas in later life. He conducts Va Pensiero from Nabucco at a vast open-air concert in Naples, a chorus which was to become a powerful symbol of political unity for the Italian people.
WED 01:20 Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village (b0bsrqj7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
WED 01:50 Earth from Space (p072n8m0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WED 02:45 The Planets (p06qj389)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 19 AUGUST 2021
THU 19:00 BBC Proms (m000yw9k)
2021
A Night at the Opera
Six of the UK's finest opera singers take to the Royal Albert Hall stage to star in a gala concert packed with operatic favourites from Puccini’s La bohème, Bizet’s Carmen, Beethoven’s Fidelio and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. Also featuring pieces by Gluck, Handel and Janácek, young maestro Ben Glassberg directs the BBC Philharmonic in an unmissable evening of arias and duets that express the joy of reunion after the pain of separation. Join Petroc Trelawny as he rides the emotional rollercoaster that is a night at the opera.
THU 21:00 An Inspector Calls (p02z80kq)
The mysterious 'Inspector Goole' interrupts a wealthy family's family party to tell them a young woman died of suicide that night. But what's that got to do with them? One by one, they will find out... as their shattering, dark secrets are revealed.
THU 22:30 Viva Las Vegas (b0078tvq)
Lucky Jackson needs money to get an engine good enough to enter his car into the Vegas Grand Prix. He earns the money working as a waiter but loses it again and has to enter the hotel talent contest. His opponent in the contest is the beautiful hotel swimming instructor Rusty Martin. Lucky doesn't just want to win the money; he wants to win her heart.
THU 23:50 Write Around the World with Richard E Grant (p09nlfbm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
THU 00:50 Opera Italia (b00spgk8)
The Triumph of Puccini
Three-part series tracing the history of Italian opera presented by Antonio Pappano, conductor and music director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The series features sumptuous music, stunning Italian locations and some of the biggest names in opera as contributors.
The final episode is devoted to Puccini, the worthy successor to Verdi. Puccini's operas are cinematic in their scale with ravishing, passionate and clever music, as he took Italian opera into the 20th century.
Pappano looks at five of Puccini's most popular operas - La Boheme, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Gianni Schicchi and Turandot. He travels to Rome to meet stage director Franco Zeffirelli and talk about Puccini and Zeffirelli's famous production of Turandot.
Pappano also talks to one of the great Puccini interpreters, the soprano Renata Scotto, about the composer, Madame Butterfly and the role of Mimi in La Boheme. Also featured are soprano Angela Gheorghiu, tenors Jonas Kaufmann and Roberto Alagna and baritone Sir Thomas Allen.
THU 01:50 Motherland (p09gv6bk)
Series 3
Episode 3
Mother’s Day leaves Julia feeling ignored while Meg gets spoilt rotten. Amanda endures a passive aggressive lunch with her appalling mother Felicity.
THU 02:20 Nature's Turtle Nursery: Secrets from the Nest (b0b7st0z)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 on Sunday]
FRIDAY 20 AUGUST 2021
FRI 19:00 BBC Proms (m000yw8g)
2021
Nubya Garcia
British saxophonist and composer Nubya Garcia brings her inventive brand of Afrobeat and Latin American-influenced jazz to the Royal Albert Hall. The rising star performs a set drawing on her acclaimed album Source, recently nominated for the Mercury Prize.
Her Proms debut is presented by Clive Myrie, and she’s accompanied by a young band drawn from a revitalised London jazz scene. The Royal Albert Hall is a special place for Garcia – she played it as a child in the Camden Schools’ Music Festival and has been a keen Prommer ever since.
FRI 20:45 Top of the Pops (m000crqz)
Big Hits 1989
As the 80s come to a close, the Top of the Pops vaults open once more to offer up the movers, shakers and chart toppers of 1989.
This compilation looks back at performances by established megastars Tina Turner and Phil Collins, all-conquering funki dreds Soul II Soul, dance queen Paula Abdul, northern soul girl Lisa Stansfield and wry vocal group The Beautiful South.
Madchester favourites Stone Roses and Happy Mondays also put in an appearance along with Stock Aitken and Waterman stalwarts Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and Sonia, not forgetting Sydney Youngblood, Mike and The Mechanics, Rebel MC and Double Trouble, plus duets from strange bedfellows Marc Almond and Gene Pitney, and Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville.
FRI 21:00 Top of the Pops (m000yw8k)
Bruno Brookes presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 11 July 1991 and featuring OMD, Billy Bragg and Bros.
FRI 21:30 Pride Hits at the BBC (m000xp6c)
A musical celebration for International Pride Month, with a collection of the BBC archives' biggest stars - including Kylie, Elton John and Lady Gaga.
Our Pride playlist features controversial classics like Relax and Smalltown Boy; enduring anthems like Born This Way, I Will Survive and Glad to Be Gay; and the unforgettable sounds of disco, Dolly and Dusty. These are the songs and performances that helped to create some of the entertainment world’s greatest icons - capturing the delight, desire and defiance of the Pride movement, whilst also dominating the charts.
FRI 22:30 Radio 2 Live (b0bjkrts)
Hyde Park Headliners
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Minogue takes to the stage in London's Hyde Park for the annual BBC Radio 2 Festival in a Day to perform a plethora of her floor-filling numbers to a crowd of 45,000 people.
Kylie has carved her place in pop music history after dominating the international pop and dance charts and selling more than 80 million records over the course of three decades. Expect such classics as Spinning Around, In Your Eyes, Better the Devil You Know and Can't Get You Out of My Head to be celebrated along with songs from her recent country/Nashville-inspired record Golden, her 14th studio album, which became her first number one album since 2001.
FRI 23:30 BBC One Sessions (b007chh9)
Elton John
Series of unique, intimate performances by some of the greatest legends and contemporary stars around. Elton John and his band are in concert at LSO St Luke's in Shoreditch, performing some of his most famous hits alongside songs from his latest album, The Captain and the Kid.
FRI 00:25 Singer-Songwriters at the BBC (b016300t)
Series 2
Episode 4
The celebration of the singing songwriting troubadours of the 1960s and 70s concludes with a further trawl through the BBC archives for timeless and classic performances.
Starting things off, a 23-year-old Bob Dylan performing on the BBC's Tonight programme in 1964. On It's Lulu from 1971, 'Bisto Kid' lookalike singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan, while from a concert in 1970 buddies Graham Nash and David Crosby perform Nash's Marrakesh Express. Londoner Labi Siffre makes an appearance from the archives, as does fellow English songwriter Michael Chapman.
From the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1976, Gil Scott-Heron performs alongside his band and life-long collaborator Brian Jackson, and the musician's musician Roy Harper performs One of Those Days in England with a full band on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Grammy award winner Janis Ian performs Tea and Sympathy and, to round things off, a rare sighting of Kate Bush performing on The Leo Sayer Show in 1978.
FRI 01:25 Top of the Pops (m000yw8k)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 01:55 Pride Hits at the BBC (m000xp6c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:30 today]
FRI 02:55 Top of the Pops (m000crqz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:45 today]