SATURDAY 11 SEPTEMBER 2021

SAT 19:00 Treasures of Ancient Egypt (p01mv1kj)
A New Dawn

Alastair Sooke concludes the epic story of Egyptian art by looking at how, despite political decline, the final era of the Egyptian Empire saw its art enjoy revival and rebirth. From the colossal statues of Rameses II that proclaimed the pharaoh's power to the final flourishes under Queen Cleopatra, Sooke discovers that the subsequent invasions by foreign rulers, from the Nubians and Alexander the Great to the Romans, produced a new hybrid art full of surprise. He also unearths a seam of astonishing satirical work, produced by ordinary men, that continues to inspire Egypt's graffiti artists today.


SAT 20:00 Brazil with Michael Palin (p00z8bp6)
Out of Africa

Brazil in the 21st century has become a global player. With a booming economy and massive social changes, there is a swagger to this once-sleeping giant, but what do we know of it apart from football and carnival? Michael Palin has travelled across most of the globe over the years, but never to Brazil. In this four-part series he crosses the country as big as a continent to find out what makes it tick.

He begins his journey in the north east, where modern Brazil was born. It was here the Portuguese explorers first landed and encountered the native Brazilians. It was here that hundreds of thousands of African slaves were brought to work on sugar and tobacco plantations, and it was here where this mix of races and cultures produced what we now think of as Brazil. Music, food, dance, religion - all of these bear the imprint of this heady mix.

He starts in the city of Sao Luis during the celebration of its own very north eastern festival of Bumba Meu Boi - 'Jump My Bull' - before travelling down the coast to Recife and Salvador. On his way, he drops in on the vaqueros - Brazilian cowboys - who work the massive cattle ranches of the dry interior. His travels also take him to the stunning coastal lagoons of the Lencois Maranheses national park.

In Salvador he learns to drum with the famous Olodum school, experiences the trance and dance of Candomble, the Afro-Brazilian religion, finds out how to cook Bahian-style with renowned cook, Dada, and discovers what lies behind the beguiling moves of capoeria dancers. If you want to know what makes Brazil so vibrant, the north east is the place to start.


SAT 21:00 The Hunt for a Killer (p09lx0mf)
Series 1

Episode 3

The unsolved murder of Helén Nilsson continues to frustrate the Kristianstadt team as they begin to investigate the murder of prostitute Jannica Ekblad. Pelle is convinced the two murders are connected, but bureaucratic red tape frustrates their research.

In Swedish with English subtitles.


SAT 21:45 The Hunt for a Killer (p09lx0mk)
Series 1

Episode 4

Autumn, 2002. After a period off work through depression, Akesson returns to a basement office with little official duty and the internal investigation against him officially closed. Determined to fulfil his promise to Helén's mother, he orders some files from Malmo of the murder case that has been cold for three years.

In Swedish with English subtitles.


SAT 22:30 Storyville (m000kbnw)
Scandalous! The Tabloid That Changed America

Sex! Gossip! Scandal! Over the course of 60 years, the National Enquirer became the most infamous tabloid in America, pumping out salacious stories, stretching the limits of journalism, blurring the lines between truth and fiction and changing the cultural landscape forever.

With outrageous anecdotes and biting wit, Scandalous traces the newspaper’s aggressive and cut-throat style of journalism across some of the biggest stories of our times - the deaths of Elvis and Princess Diana, the OJ Simpson trial and the Clinton impeachment saga. To satiate their readers’ obsession with the rich and famous, the newspaper poached veteran reporters from the British tabloid scene and allegedly used payoffs and blackmail to get its scoops.

Using rare archive footage, Scandalous is the story of how one American tabloid newspaper’s clear-sighted grasp of its readers’ darkest curiosities garnered massive profits, influence in powerful places and a central role in Trump's presidency.


SAT 00:05 Treasures of Ancient Egypt (p01mv1kj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SAT 01:05 Brazil with Michael Palin (p00z8bp6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SAT 02:05 Earth's Great Rivers (b0bwqpbj)
Series 1

Mississippi

It is an unexpected and contrasting journey through America's iconic and varied landscapes as the Mississippi flows from source to mouth. The Mississippi's greatest surprise is its incredible reach. Its fingers stretch into nearly half of the USA, collecting water from 31 states. More than any other, this one river has helped unite the many and varied parts of America. The Mississippi's longest tributary begins life in the depths of winter, in the towering Rocky Mountains of Wyoming and Montana. Billions of tonnes of water, ultimately destined to flow south are trapped as ice and snow. Here, its headwaters are a draw for the world's top ice climbers, who celebrate winter with daring climbs up towering frozen waterfalls - surely the most dangerous and spectacular winter faces of the ice-bound Mississippi.

In this frozen wilderness, a handful of tenacious coyotes have learned to fish, in one remarkable Mississippi headwater kept flowing by the steaming geysers of Yellowstone National Park. In the bone-chilling water, the coyotes stand stock still for hours, risking severe hypothermia in the hope of pouncing on a fish. Spring in the Upper Mississippi in Minnesota, arrives on the wings of tens of thousands of white pelicans who bring the river to life. Both comical and beautiful, their crowded flotillas put on balletic, synchronised fishing displays. On the other side of the continent in crystal-clear Appalachian Mountain streams, some devious parents employ the creepiest childcare strategy on earth. Freshwater mussels produce bizarre growths which mimic small fish. These lifelike lures even have false eyes and dance, imitating real fish. Their purpose is to act as living bait, tricking larger predatory fish into attacking them. Once bitten, a cloud of blood-sucking baby mussels clamp onto the unwitting fish's gills. After several weeks of feeding on their victim's body fluids, they drop off and disperse. These sneaky mussels provide their babies with food and transport to different parts of the river. It is a macabre underwater puppet show, made all the more weird as the puppet master (the parent mussel) is blind and has no idea what a fish looks like.

But the spring thaw also means extra work for busy beavers - safe in their cosy lodges all winter, they must now venture out to repair the damage that the rushing meltwater has done to their precious dams. As the river flows south through the central US, it becomes a vital transport link. Special cameras take us on a time-travelling journey down the busiest section of the river. A gigantic boat zooms hundreds of miles downriver in seconds, flashing through night and day. This is the industrial heart of the river. Even here, the river still hosts incredible wildlife spectacles. Each Independence Day, millions of mayflies gather in swarms so large they can be seen on weather radar.

As it flows into the south, it spreads and slows, feeding the largest swamp in the US - the fertile, mysterious Atchafalaya. Over 2,000 square miles of wetlands, where alligators still rule. This is one of the richest and most diverse wilderness regions of the states, - a melting pot where racoons and beavers mix with tropical specialties like roseate spoonbills and emerald-green anole lizards. These back waters are the fabled spirit of the Mississippi made famous by Mark Twain and the Blues. As the massive river nears the ocean, it passes cities that have grown up along its banks - like New Orleans. Here 60 miles of docks make it the largest port in the western hemisphere where goods brought down the Mississippi are transferred to huge ocean going ships.

At the end of its 3,500-mile journey, the Mississippi eventually creates one of the biggest river deltas on the planet. But today this delta is under threat. Damming and controls along the river's length are preventing the Mississippi's natural flood cycles - it can no longer replace land that the ocean washes away. This remarkable delta is home to millions of migrant birds and protects vast areas inland from hurricane surges. Its preservation is key to both the people and the wildlife here. The delta is a landscape built by the river from cornfields in Iowa, mountaisides in the Rockies and sediment from Tennessee streams - all collected and deposited by one huge river which unites and defines one great nation.



SUNDAY 12 SEPTEMBER 2021

SUN 19:00 Boulez at the BBC (m000zntk)
Archive footage of pioneering conductor and composer Pierre Boulez.


SUN 19:30 Ego: The Strange and Wonderful World of Self-Portraits (b00vngl0)
Art critic Laura Cumming takes a journey through more than five centuries of self-portraits and finds out how the greatest names in western art transformed themselves into their own masterpieces.

The film argues that self-portraits are a unique form of art, one that always reveals the truth of how artists saw themselves and how they wanted to be known to the world. Examining the works of key self-portraitists including Durer, Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Warhol, Laura traces the development of the genre, uncovering the strange and various ways artists have managed to get their inner and outer selves to match up.

Laura investigates the stories behind key self-portraits, interviews artists as they attempt a self-portrait, and shows how the history of the self-portrait is about more than how art and artists have changed, it also charts the evolution of the way we see ourselves and what it means to be human.

She also discusses Courbet with Julian Barnes, Rembrandt's theatricality with Simon Callow, and meets the contemporary artists Mark Wallinger and Patrick Hughes, observing the latter making his first ever self-portrait.


SUN 21:00 Life Drawing Live! (m000zntm)
2021

Pose Cam

In a groundbreaking TV event broadcast across BBC Two and BBC Four, Joe Lycett hosts the biggest ever live life drawing masterclass from English Heritage’s Wrest Park in Bedfordshire. Experts Daphne Todd and Lachlan Goudie will guide celebrity amateur artists, including comedian Johnny Vegas, singer Kimberly Wyatt and footballer David James, through a series of poses inspired by classical works of art. A mixture of nude professional and celebrity life models, such as Olympic champion swimmer James Guy and Lucien Freud’s celebrated muse Sue Tilley, will recreate stunning visuals.

Josie d’Arby will encourage viewers to pick up their pencils, draw along from home and upload their work, some of which will be given feedback live on air.

So if you want to draw, tune in to BBC Four. It will be at the heart of the class with ‘Pose Cam’, providing an uninterrupted view of the poses. Artist Nicky Philipps joins Josie to reveal more of the history behind the artworks.

Class starts at 9pm!


SUN 23:00 Arena (m000775t)
Cindy Sherman #untitled

Cindy Sherman is one of the world’s leading contemporary artists. She is also notoriously elusive. So, it is a coup for Arena to get this in-depth and revealing audio interview with her. An exuberant weave of art and archive gives us a rare insight into one of the most influential artists alive today.


SUN 00:00 Botticelli's Venus: The Making of an Icon (b070sqb0)
Sam Roddick explores the enduring appeal of Botticelli's masterpiece The Birth of Venus, one of the most celebrated paintings in western art and a joyous celebration of female sexuality. Its journey to worldwide fame was far from straightforward and it lay in obscurity for centuries. Artist and entrepreneur Sam explains why Botticelli's nude was so revolutionary and explores its impact on contemporary culture with artists such as Terry Gilliam, who memorably reinvented Venus for his Monty Python's Flying Circus animations.


SUN 00:30 Art on the BBC (m000f4d2)
Series 1

The Story of the Nude

In early history, nudes were gods or heroes. Since then, the nude has often been about sex but also a powerful influence on how we view the body.

Art historian Kate Bryan explores six decades of BBC archive to discover how television has influenced our understanding of the nude and how our attitudes have changed.

As she examines the archives, Kate finds that while beauty and sexuality are never far away, artists have always used the nude as a vehicle to defy conventions. The programme also reveals how our attitudes to nudity have changed over time.


SUN 01:30 Boulez at the BBC (m000zntk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SUN 02:00 Ego: The Strange and Wonderful World of Self-Portraits (b00vngl0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]



MONDAY 13 SEPTEMBER 2021

MON 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b09l5n6s)
Series 9

Chichester to Cowes

His early 20th-century Bradshaw's guide in hand, Michael Portillo is in Chichester, West Sussex, where he encounters an Edwardian motoring duo patronised by King Edward VII. After a grand tour of their factory, he is treated to some R&R in one of their finest vehicles. Arriving in the seaside resort of Southsea, Hampshire, Michael heads for the majestic King's Theatre, built by a renowned theatre designer of the day. He treads the boards with a group of true thespians, in a community production of Lads in the Village.

Crossing the Solent with a ticket to Ryde, Michael boards the Island Line to travel along the pier in a 1930s London Underground carriage, then hops on to the Isle of Wight heritage line bound for Wootton. His destination is Osborne House, where the future King Edward VII spent much of his childhood.


MON 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000znv4)
Series 4

Snowfall Magic

Experience the mystique of snowflakes gently tumbling in the silence of the forest. Join Bob Ross as he paints a lovely winter scene.


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 Inside America's Treasure House: The Met (m000znv8)
Series 1

Episode 1

The series begins in spring 2019, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art is in its pomp – the coffers full, visitor numbers are up and staff preparing to mark, in one year's time, the museum’s 150th anniversary. The museum has long been planning a series of stand-out exhibitions and events. The art press gather for a breakfast in the American Wing sculpture court, surrounded by treasures reflecting the tastes of the philanthropist founders of the Metropolitan. These were new-money industrialists and financiers, who believed that the lives of New York's teeming millions would be improved by their proximity to beauty. That beauty, however, was vested almost exclusively in the European arts and the artefacts of classical civilisations. The museum is aware that the tastes of the Gilded Age aren't for everyone, and a dance display by the House of Gorgeous shows they're awake to the woke.

In his fifth-floor office sits Met president and CEO Dan Weiss, the art historian recently appointed to steer the largest art museum in the Americas out of a period of falling visitor numbers and financial turbulence. Overlooking Central Park, he revels in a painting by Alfred Sisley, a print of which once graced his college digs. Those who built the Met in 1870 wanted an American Louvre, an audacious vision, he says, considering they had no art. The likes of JP Morgan, a previous president, simply spent and lent big, snapping up artefacts all over the world and donating their own collections. Weiss is also spending big for next year's special exhibitions and, with the Met’s director Max Hollein, planning a slew of great events. He's also splashing out on capital projects like the new six-acre glass roof for the European Paintings gallery, at $150m, just one improvement that will make 2020 a landmark year.

The inner workings of the Met are revealed with excursions into various departments, and the warren of labs, workrooms and archives above and deep below the public areas. In the Arms and Armour workshops, they're repairing gauntlets before sending some of their massive collection off to Vienna, and preparing for the arrival from Europe of new old iron and steel for a great show of German armour, The Last Knight.

There's more quiet frenzy in the Costume Institute. The conservators have just recovered from the 2019 Met Gala, the starry night where celebrities parade for the camera and make the donations that fund this department. Staff have just delivered this year’s annual show, Camp, a pink celebration of costume drama that is pulling in the crowds. In the next room, they're amassing black garments for the monster 2020 show currently being crafted by British uber-designer Es Devlin.

The film drills deepest into preparations for a show about British mercantile expansion and its impact on interior design. Assistant curator Dr Wolf Burchard has been spirited from the National Trust to Fifth Avenue, his mission: to tell a 500-year story of enterprise from the Tudor to Victorian eras. The museum's existing British galleries are being remodelled for the occasion, and Burchard and his team must navigate the construction works to create a display of 700 items. They've got a £20m budget and seven months.

Two floors up, colleagues face similar time challenges as they build the keystone exhibition Making the Met. It tells the tale of the museum's 15 decades using objects from every department, and new ones donated by sponsors and benefactors. Outside, Austrian Max Hollein, only a few months in post, leads the drive to make the Met feel more modern, diverse and inclusive. For the first time since the austere Beaux-Arts building opened, niches in the exterior are filled with art - a series of bronzes by Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu. She tells how groundbreaking this initiative is.

The Met is on a roll. We are with the glitterati flocking across the Upper East Side for a private viewing of the British exhibition. The public opening of the new galleries, on 2 March 2020, heralds the start of the 150th year programme. Curator Burchard says how strange it feels to have his galleries packed with thousands.

That very same night, the first victim of Covid-19 is in hospital. Within days, the Met will be the first large institution in the city to lock down. As New York becomes a ghost town, viewers are on the inside watching the museum trying to protect one million exhibits from light damage and moths, wrestling with 20 per cent staff cuts and losses of $150m, while working towards a reopening, sometime in an uncertain future. When that day comes, we witness emotional scenes that underline a truth: that New Yorkers regard the Met as their own. More than just a museum, it's a resource and a refuge.


MON 22:00 Keith Haring: Street Art Boy (m000kqk5)
International art sensation Keith Haring blazed a trail through the legendary art scene of 1980s New York and revolutionised the worlds of pop culture and fine art. This fascinating and compelling film - told using previously unheard interviews with Haring, which form the narrative of the documentary - is the definitive story of the artist in his own words.

The film also includes exclusive, unprecedented access to the Haring Foundation’s archives, capturing the wild, creative energy behind some of the most recognisable art of the past 30 years.


MON 23:30 Art of America (b017755r)
Looking for Paradise

In the first episode of a series exploring the history of American art, Andrew Graham-Dixon embarks on an epic journey from east to west, following in the footsteps of the pioneers who built the foundations of modern America.

During his journey, he travels to Massachusetts to see the earliest portraits in America depicting the Puritan settlers and visits Pennsylvania to uncover the dark truth behind Benjamin West's most famous painting, the spectacular Treaty of Penn with the Indians. In Philadelphia, he turns the pages of one of the world's most expensive books - John James Audubon's exquisite Birds of America, and explores the wilderness that inspired America's greatest landscape painter, Thomas Cole.

He also uncovers the paradox at the heart of America: that progress and innovation have come at a tragic price, the destruction of the unique cultural heritage of Native Americans by European settlers.

Andrew's journey takes us to the end of the 19th century and the announcement that the era of westward expansion was officially over.


MON 00:30 Handmade in Bolton (m00095hq)
Series 1

Visigothic Brooch

Shaun Greenhalgh was once a prolific forger. Based in a garden shed in his parents' house in Bolton, he fooled the experts for three decades with an impressive array of fakes. Obsessed with the techniques of the past, Shaun could make anything - from medieval church carvings to Islamic drinking vessels. But a spell in prison convinced him to cross back over to the right side of the law and he has now teamed up with Oxford historian Dr Janina Ramirez. Together, they are trying to keep alive the secrets of the ancients.

In the first episode, Janina sets Shaun the challenge of making a jewelled eagle brooch of the kind worn by Visigoth chieftains in the Dark Ages. Inspired by a live eagle he befriends in an animal sanctuary in Lancashire, Shaun is confident he can do it. But sourcing the materials proves tricky, and making the brooch is more difficult than he expected. Can he finish in time?


MON 01:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b09l5n6s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 01:30 Inside America's Treasure House: The Met (m000znv8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


MON 02:30 Secrets of the Museum (m000f9b2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



TUESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2021

TUE 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b09m2j0l)
Series 9

Swanwick to Brownsea Island

Steered by his Edwardian Bradshaw's guide, Michael Portillo promises to do his best on the island where Robert Baden Powell began the Scout movement in the early 20th century. Joining a group of modern Scouts he learns to build a bivouac and finds out what it is about Scouting that still appeals to boys - and girls - today.

In the New Forest, Michael searches out some unsung heroes of the First World War, the ponies who became war horses, and hears their story from a commoner who runs a stable and riding school. Plus in Bournemouth, he investigates a very British institution: the beach hut.


TUE 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000znxd)
Series 4

The Footbridge

Stroll down to the river, cast your line with Bob Ross from the bridge, join in the fun and create a masterpiece.


TUE 20:00 The Good Life (p00bzcff)
Series 2

Home Sweet Home

Sitcom about a couple who try to live self-sufficiently in Surbiton. After a visit from a boar walker, Tom and Barbara consider selling up and moving to a small farm.


TUE 20:30 Porridge (p00bxn9j)
Series 2

Happy Release

A spell in the prison hospital is not as restful as Fletcher hoped, after he finds himself sharing a ward with Blanco.


TUE 21:00 imagine... (b0c1wkzc)
2019

Jo Brand: No Holds Barred

She is boldly outspoken, fearlessly funny and unfailingly kind - Jo Brand has become one of Britain's best-loved comedians. Brand burst onto the nation's largely male stand-up comedy scene in the 1980s - dressed in baggy black outfits and Dr Martens boots, and calling herself the Sea Monster. In doing so, she revolutionised what women could be - and say - on stage. Jo went on to achieve national treasure status as a regular host on Have I Got News for You and Extra Slice.

From her working-class roots in south London, through her teenage tearaway years in Hastings - when her parents became so frustrated with her behaviour that they threw her out, aged 16 - to the decade that she spent as a psychiatric nurse, Jo's journey into comedy has not been an easy one.

imagine... goes behind the scenes with Jo as she presents HIGNFY and The News Quiz on Radio 4, and accompanies her on the book tour circuit as she promotes her latest book Born Lippy: How to Do Female, which takes on everything from surviving family life to issues surrounding the female body and how to deal with heckling.

Brand has been a trailblazer for women on screen. Not only has she broken through into the tough world of stand-up comedy, changing it forever in the process, but she has demonstrated enormous diversity, including acting, writing and performing, factual, drama and comedy, shattering stereotypes of what women on television should look, be and sound like.

Contributors include Peter Capaldi, Alan Davies, Victoria Coren Mitchell, Mark Thomas, Mary Beard, Morwenna Banks and Ian Hislop.


TUE 22:00 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b04bmmvs)
Born Lippy: Mark Lawson Talks To Jo Brand

Mark Lawson talks to comedian, writer and actress Jo Brand. After a decade working as a psychiatric nurse, Jo turned her hand to comedy in the 1980s and has spent nearly 30 years at the top of what is widely accepted to be a male-dominated genre, receiving recognition by BAFTA in 2011 for her performance in the sitcom Getting On.

One of the most important female comics of her generation, she reveals the backlash she faced on her arrival on the alternative comedy scene, her approach to hecklers and taboos, as well as her experiences as a TV personality - from the pressure of having her own sketch show, Jo Brand: Through The Cakehole, to being on panel shows such as Have I Got News for You and Mock the Week.


TUE 23:00 The Culture Show (b038zfvb)
2013/2014

The Culture Show at Edinburgh: Funny Women

Sue Perkins explores the highs and lows of being a woman in the unashamedly macho world of stand-up comedy. With unique behind-the-scenes access to the most important date in the stand-up comedy calendar, Sue discovers the thrills of a good gig and the spills of a disparaging review as she follows three stand-up comedians at the Edinburgh Festival: Bridget Christie, Claudia O'Doherty and Dana Alexander.

Also featuring interviews with Jo Brand, Lucy Porter, Jo Caulfield, Andi Osho and Shappi Khorsandi; Sue finds out how her fellow female stand-ups got hooked on comedy and why they keep taking the knocks and coming back for more.


TUE 23:30 Some People with Jokes (b040y927)
Series 2 - 15 Minute Versions

Some Dog Owners with Jokes

Dog owners from around Britain tell their favourite jokes. We take the ruff with the smooth as these canine cackle merchants prove it's not just the dogs that are barking. It's the Crufts of comedy with these wags and there are plenty of shaggy dog stories.


TUE 00:00 Handmade in Bolton (m00095j4)
Series 1

Nottingham Alabaster

In episode two, Dr Janina Ramirez sets ex-forger Shaun Greenhalgh the challenge of making an alabaster carving of the kind mass-produced in Catholic England in the centuries before the Reformation. But the mines in Nottingham that produced English alabaster were closed down long ago, and the destruction unleashed by Henry VIII has left behind precious few examples, so Shaun’s views about how the Nottingham alabasters would originally have looked shock Janina.


TUE 00:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b09m2j0l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


TUE 01:00 imagine... (b0c1wkzc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


TUE 02:00 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b04bmmvs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


TUE 03:00 Inside America's Treasure House: The Met (m000znv8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]



WEDNESDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2021

WED 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b09m8hgm)
Series 9

Whitland to Swansea

Dressed in the colours of the Welsh flag and with his 'new' Edwardian Bradshaw's guide in hand, Michael Portillo embarks on a railway adventure, from the coalfields of south Wales around the Bristol Channel to the southernmost tip of Cornwall. His first stop is Whitland in Carmarthenshire, where in the early 20th century, thrill-seekers gathered on Pendine Sands to indulge their need for speed. Michael joins latter day petrolheads to burn rubber on the beach in an iconic three-wheeler.

In Llanelli, Michael retraces the fateful events of a national rail strike in 1911 and is stirred by the sound of a male voice choir as they sing the town's unofficial anthem. At Loughor, he discovers a passionate preacher, who led a religious revival which gripped Edwardian Wales and had profound implications for the nation's established church.

In a suburban semi-detached house in the 'sprawling, crawling town of Swansea', Michael discovers the restored home of the poet Dylan Thomas, and the tiny bedroom in which he wrote two thirds of his published work.


WED 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000znw1)
Series 4

Covered Bridge Oval

Cross a frozen stream under the shelter of a grand, covered bridge and enjoy the tranquillity of a beautiful winter’s day, all created by the magic of painter Bob Ross.


WED 20:00 Wild Brazil (p01npl5v)
A Dangerous World

Three charismatic animal families, capuchin monkeys, giant otters and coatis, strive to raise their families against a backdrop of extraordinary landscapes and huge extremes of weather - a beautiful yet dangerous world full of jaguars and caimans. An intimate journey to the heart of a spectacular country, this first chapter of the trilogy sees the babies taking their first steps during a brief pause between seasonal extremes.


WED 21:00 Measuring Mass: The Last Artefact (m000znw3)
Just outside Paris, inside a hi-tech vault, and encased in three vacuum-sealed bell jars, rests a small metallic cylinder about the diameter of a golf ball.

It may not look like much, but it is one of the most important objects on the planet. It affects nearly every aspect of our lives including the food we eat, the cars we drive, even the medicines we take. It is the kilogramme, the base unit of mass in the International System of Units. This small hunk of metal is the object against which all others are measured. Yet over time, its mass has mysteriously eroded by the weight of an eyelash. A change that, unbeknownst to most, unleashed a crisis with potentially dire consequences.

Measuring Mass: The Last Artefact follows the ensuing high-stakes, two-year race to redefine the weight of the world, and tells the story of one of the most important objects on the planet.


WED 22:00 Gunda: Mother, Pig (m000znw5)
Gunda provides a glimpse into the raw and simple power of nature through mesmerising encounters with farm animals, the eponymous Gunda, a mother pig, two ingenious cows and a scene-stealing, one-legged chicken.

Film-maker Victor Kossakovsky reminds us of the many lives that share this earth with humans and their value. From the first steps of piglets to the roaming joy of freed cows, Gunda: Mother, Pig draws a connection between human and animal, and the planet that we share with creatures great and small.


WED 23:30 Inside America's Treasure House: The Met (m000znv8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]


WED 00:30 Handmade in Bolton (m00095jc)
Series 1

Palissy Plate

In episode three, ex-forger Shaun Greenhalgh is set the task of making a Renaissance animal plate of the type invented by the great French potter Bernard Palissy. Palissy’s plates are alive with writhing reptiles, but for Shaun, killing grass snakes in Lancashire is not an option. So how can he source some examples for his moulds? And will it mean journeying back to his dark past as a forger?


WED 01:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b09m8hgm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


WED 01:30 Wild Brazil (p01npl5v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 02:30 Measuring Mass: The Last Artefact (m000znw3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 2021

THU 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b09m8hhr)
Series 9

Pontyclun to Ebbw Vale Town

Armed with his Edwardian Bradshaw's guide, Michael strikes gold at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, where after much frisking, he gains access to the inner vaults.

At Cardiff Arms Park, Michael revisits the scene of a triumphant Welsh victory over the fearsome All Blacks and hears from Welsh international Gerald Davies how the Welsh national anthem kicked the intimidating Haka into touch.

In Cardiff Bay, Michael discovers the departure point for one of the Edwardian era's most famous expeditions - Scott's ill-fated voyage to the Antarctic. Aboard the racing yacht Challenge Wales, Michael meets young sailors training for a Tall Ships Race.


THU 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000znx0)
Series 4

Hideaway Cove

Take a stroll with Bob Ross, down to a perfect little fishing spot tucked away from the world, and relish the beauty of the day.


THU 20:00 Three Men in a Boat (m000znx2)
Drama adapted from Jerome K Jerome's classic tale. Overworked and in need of a rest, three men and a dog set out on an epic voyage of mishap up the Thames.


THU 21:05 imagine... (m000zhgd)
2021

Tom Stoppard: A Charmed Life

Tom Stoppard is perhaps the world’s leading, funniest and cleverest playwright. Ever since he hit the ground running in the 1960s with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, there has always been a streak of melancholy beneath the sparkling surface of his work. Now with his latest play, Leopoldstadt, he comes full circle and faces up to the pain and loss in his past. In this programme, he tells Alan Yentob his extraordinary story.


THU 22:35 Shakespeare in Love (m000rymh)
William Shakespeare hasn't written a hit in years, and theatre owner Henslowe is counting on Shakespeare's promised comedy, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter, to keep his wolfish creditors from the door. At the casting session, Will hears his lines spoken with great feeling by an unknown young actor and his curiousity is fired. Soon he discovers the secret of the talented young actor and rediscovers his muse. As Shakespeare falls in love with an unattainable noblewoman, the farcical comedy transforms into the timeless tragedy that is Romeo and Juliet.


THU 00:30 Handmade in Bolton (m0009dkh)
Series 1

Rock Crystal Bottle

Oxford historian Dr Janina Ramirez sets ex-forger Shaun Greenhalgh his hardest task yet. Shaun has to carve an Islamic bottle out of rock crystal in the style of the 10th-century Egyptian Fatimids. Rock crystal is notoriously fragile. Sourcing the right quantities of it is almost impossible. The real problems begin, however, when the carving is finished.


THU 01:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b09m8hhr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


THU 01:30 Female Filmmakers: BBC Introducing Arts (m000fzm7)
Celebrating the next generation of female filmmakers, these short films from BBC Introducing Arts are all made by women. Presented by Janina Ramirez, these talented, emerging artists use comedy, drama and dance to tell stories from a contemporary female perspective.

Photo: Marco Cervi


THU 02:30 The Art of Japanese Life (p054md5m)
Series 1

Cities

Dr James Fox explores how the artistic life of three great Japanese cities shaped the country's attitudes to past and present, east and west, and helped forge the very idea of Japan itself.

Beginning in Kyoto, the country's capital for almost a thousand years, James reveals how the flowering of classical culture produced many great treasures of Japanese art, including The Tale of Genji, considered to be the first novel ever written. In the city of Edo, where Tokyo now stands, a very different art form emerged, in the wood block prints of artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige. James meets the artisans still creating these prints today, and discovers original works by a great master, Utamaro, who documented the so-called 'floating world' - the pleasure district of Edo.

In contemporary Tokyo, James discovers the darker side of Japan's urbanisation, through the photographs of street photographer Daido Moriyama, and meets one of the founders of the world-famous Studio Ghibli, Isao Takahata, whose haunting anime film Grave of the Fireflies helped establish anime as a powerful and serious art form.



FRIDAY 17 SEPTEMBER 2021

FRI 19:00 One-Hit Wonders at the BBC (b05r7nxx)
Compilation of some indelible hits by artists we hardly heard from again, at least in a chart sense. Featuring Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)? - a number one in 1969 and a hit he never really matched, Trio's 1982 smash Da Da Da, Phyllis Nelson's 1985 lovers rock-style classic Move Closer, and The New Radicals' 1999 hit You Get What You Give.

We travel through the years selecting some of your favourite number ones and a few others that came close, revealing what's happened to the one-off hitmakers since and exploring the unwritten laws that help make sense of the one-hit wonder phenomenon.


FRI 20:00 Top of the Pops (m000znwm)
Nicky Campbell presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 8 August 1991 and featuring Blur, The Shamen and Beverley Craven.


FRI 20:30 Top of the Pops (m000znwp)
Gary Davies presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 15 August 1991 and featuring Level 42, Bryan Adams and Right Said Fred.


FRI 21:00 The Old Grey Whistle Test Story (b0074t7r)
Jo Brand narrates a profile which celebrates the life and times of the BBC's first flagship live music programme, The Old Grey Whistle Test, which ran from 1971 to 1987. It looks at the music, the presenters, the TV rivals, the sparse studio and the legacy, finds out why Bob Harris whispered, what Sid Vicious tried to do to him and what Camel did with a woodwind quartet and why. All these questions are answered and many more, followed by loving compilations of those early 70s years, the era that time forgot.


FRI 21:40 The Old Grey Whistle Test (b09scfnb)
For One Night Only

Hosted by Bob Harris, this studio show, originally shown live, features music, special guests and rare archive to mark 30 years since the legendary series was last broadcast in 1988. Featuring performances from Peter Frampton, Richard Thompson, and Albert Lee among others.

Bob also chats to Whistle Test alumni, including Dave Stewart, Joan Armatrading, Ian Anderson, Chris Difford and Kiki Dee along with fans such as Danny Baker and Al Murray. A night of reminiscence, great music and fun.


FRI 00:45 Top of the Pops (m000znwm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


FRI 01:15 Top of the Pops (m000znwp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


FRI 01:45 One-Hit Wonders at the BBC (b05r7nxx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


FRI 02:45 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.