The BBC has announced that it has a sustainable plan for the future of the BBC Singers, in association with The VOCES8 Foundation.
The threat to reduce the staff of the three English orchestras by 20% has not been lifted, but it is being reconsidered.
See the BBC press release here.

Radio-Lists Home Now on BBC 4 Contact

RADIO-LISTS: BBC FOUR
Unofficial Weekly Listings for BBC 4 — supported by bbc.co.uk/programmes/



SATURDAY 03 SEPTEMBER 2011

SAT 19:00 Life (b00ncr13)
Challenges of Life

In nature, living long enough to breed is a monumental struggle. Many animals and plants go to extremes to give themselves a chance.

Uniquely, three brother cheetahs band together to bring down a huge ostrich. Aerial photography reveals how bottle-nosed dolphins trap fish in a ring of mud, and time-lapse cameras show how the Venus flytrap ensnares insect victims.

The strawberry frog carries a tadpole high into a tree and drops it in a water-filled bromeliad. The frog must climb back from the ground every day to feed it.

Fledgling chinstrap penguins undertake a heroic and tragic journey through the broken ice to get out to sea. Many can barely swim and the formidable leopard seal lies in wait.


SAT 20:00 Michael Wood's Story of England (b00tw231)
Romans to Normans

Groundbreaking series in which Michael Wood tells the story of one place throughout the whole of English history. The village is Kibworth in Leicestershire in the heart of England - a place that lived through the Black Death, the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution and was even bombed in World War Two.

With the help of the local people and using archaeology, landscape, language and DNA, Michael uncovers the lost history of the first 1,000 years of the village, featuring a Roman villa, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings and graphic evidence of life on the eve of the Norman Conquest.


SAT 21:00 Spiral (b0074sk6)
Series 1

Episode 1

A young woman is found brutally murdered and dumped in a skip. Leading the investigation is young public prosecutor Pierre Clement, who teams up with no-nonsense police captain Laure Berthaud and investigating magistrate Judge Roban. Together, they must establish the identity of the victim and get to the perpetrators while navigating a tangled web of political intrigue, prostitution and drugs - each with a different vision of justice, each with their own personal demons.


SAT 21:50 Spiral (b0074sl0)
Series 1

Episode 2

Pierre must face the possibility that some of his nearest and dearest could be implicated in the murder case he is following, which is now linked to some very high-ranking names. Laure Berthaud's team investigate the apparent murder of a baby by his babysitter, while ambitious young lawyer Josephine Karlsson is recruited as the public half of a new legal partnership.


SAT 22:40 The Story of Variety with Michael Grade (b00z1z0g)
After the War

Fifty years ago every UK town had a variety theatre. Michael Grade tells the story of this lost world.


SAT 23:40 Top of the Pops (b0141mmx)
19/08/76

Dave Lee Travis introduces Hot Chocolate, 5,000 Volts, Johnny Wakelin, Jesse Green, Twiggy, David Dundas, Bryan Ferry, Elton John and Kiki Dee. Dance sequence by Ruby Flipper.


SAT 00:15 Paul Merton and Nicholas Parsons: Me & Arthur Haynes (b00z1z43)
In the late 50s and early 60s Arthur Haynes was ITV's highest paid comic, as popular as Tony Hancock. Paul Merton and Nicholas Parsons rediscover the genius of this forgotten comedy great.


SAT 01:15 Michael Wood's Story of England (b00tw231)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SAT 02:15 Life (b00ncr13)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SAT 03:15 Top of the Pops (b0141mmx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:40 today]



SUNDAY 04 SEPTEMBER 2011

SUN 19:00 BBC Proms (b014bh61)
2011

Beethoven's Missa Solemnis

This year's season of Choral Sundays at the BBC Proms concludes with a performance of Beethoven's late masterpiece, the Missa Solemnis. Sir Colin Davis conducts the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and a stellar line-up of soloists.


SUN 20:40 How a Choir Works (b00mqly3)
Choirmaster Gareth Malone joins forces with the BBC Singers to explore the styles and techniques that create a choir. He finds out why there are four sections, what polyphony is, what links Bach and the Beach Boys, what difference the venue makes and which choral combination is guaranteed to touch an emotional chord.

With repertoire ranging from Mahler to Queen and contributions from leading experts, the programme lifts the lid on the secrets of choral music.


SUN 21:40 Folk America at the Barbican (b00jp7nm)
Seasick Steve

Maverick veteran blues man Seasick Steve performs at the Barbican mixing old numbers from the likes of Furry Lewis with self-penned songs, including live favourite Chiggers.


SUN 22:00 The Killing (b00z1yqx)
Series 1

Episode 11

Having located a likely crime scene, Sarah and Jan know who they are looking for, but as the investigation leads again in the direction of Troels Hartmann's Liberal Party, the reactions of their superior officers are puzzling. Troels comes under great pressure both in his private and public life. Pernille becomes estranged from Charlotte and Theis.


SUN 23:00 When Rock Goes Acoustic (b0141myx)
The cliche of classic rock guitar is one of riffs, solos and noise. But write a list of great guitarists and their finest moments and a quieter, more intense playing comes to the fore. The acoustic guitar is the secret weapon in the armoury of the guitar hero, when paradoxically they get more attention by playing quietly than being loud.

This documentary takes an insightful and occasionally irreverent look at the love affair between rock and the humble acoustic guitar. Exploring a much less celebrated, yet crucial part of the rock musician's arsenal, contributors including Johnny Marr, Keith Richards, Ray Davies, James Dean Bradfield, Biffy Clyro, Joan Armatrading, Donovan and Roger McGuinn discuss why an instrument favoured by medieval minstrels and singing nuns is as important to rock 'n' roll as the drums, bass and its noisy sister, the electric guitar.


SUN 00:00 Acoustic at the BBC (b0141mz1)
A journey through some of the finest moments of acoustic guitar performances from the BBC archives - from Jimmy Page's television debut in 1958 to Oasis and Biffy Clyro.

Highlights include:

Neil Young - Heart of Gold
David Bowie - Starman
Oasis - Wonderwall
Donovan - Mellow Yellow
Joan Armatrading - Woncha Come on Home
Bert Jansch, Johnny Marr and Bernard Butler - The River Bank
Joni Mitchell - Chelsea Morning
Biffy Clyro - Mountains.


SUN 01:00 BBC Four Sessions (b0074sjm)
Bruce Springsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band

Series of unique concerts by musicians from around the world.

Bruce Springsteen makes a departure from his rock 'n' roll superstar persona, singing the songs made famous by Pete Seeger in the 1950s. Backed by a hootenanny-style 18-piece ensemble including horns, fiddles and accordion, he performs songs from his album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.


SUN 02:00 BBC Proms (b014bh61)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]



MONDAY 05 SEPTEMBER 2011

MON 19:00 World News Today (b014b6xf)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 The Real Jane Austen (b0074p77)
Drama-documentary exploring the life of Jane Austen. Actor Anna Chancellor, a distant relative of Jane Austen, discovers the woman behind the acclaimed novels through readings and reconstructions. Location shots of her homes in Steventon and Chawton and extracts from adaptations of her work are also featured.


MON 20:30 Only Connect (b014b7d0)
Series 5

Joggers vs Technologists

A classics graduate, a maths graduate and a history graduate united by a shared love of running face up to three colleagues from a creative engineering company. They compete to draw together the connections between things which, at first glance, seem utterly random, from JLS to full-size snooker table to sleipnir to arachnid.


MON 21:00 Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency (b014b7d2)
Developing the Regency Brand

In this second episode, Lucy Worsley looks at Britain in the wake of Waterloo - and asks how this new, triumphant nation wanted to be seen and how it set about celebrating itself in its architecture and design. Again, the Regent led the way. As he grew fatter, barely able to climb stairs or walk about, architecture became his chief creative outlet - and nowhere more so than in the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. At the start of his reign as Regent, this had been an elegant neoclassical villa, but working with the architect John Nash, George transformed it after 1815 into the most outrageous of palaces. In it, Lucy discovers more about the Regent's tastes, and finds out what he and his chef had in common.

But while the Regent was building away, what were his people doing? Lucy finds out why Waterloo Bridge became the official memorial to Britain's victory, and how it became an obsession for the painter John Constable. She also explores the powerful influence of the Elgin Marbles, purchased for the British Museum in 1816. These broken statues caused a revolution in Regency ideas and taste, and helped to spread the Greek revival in architecture across the British Isles - even if some buildings, like Edinburgh's very own Parthenon, didn't quite get finished.

So who was behind the Regency 'look'? Lucy finds out more about one of the most influential architects of the age, exploring Sir John Soane's strange architectural ideas and discovering some of his more unexpected legacies. But even if, to our eyes, Soane's ideas may be more exciting, it was his rival John Nash who really defined Regency style - and worked with the Regent himself.

At Windsor Castle, Lucy finds remnants of the Regent's lost palace, Carlton House. These were spaces where, increasingly, luxurious informality in design went hand-in-hand with racy lifestyles. In the Regent's world of gilding and pink velvet, anything went. The richest in society indulged in courtesans and soft furnishings in equal measure. And since one dance summed up this new moral climate, Lucy takes the opportunity to learn the then outrageously sexy waltz.

Not that everyone was living this way. Lucy goes in search of her heroine Jane Austen, who dedicated her novel Emma to the Prince Regent. Lucy discovers that Jane put a few political messages into her novels - particularly when it came to the relationship between architecture and upper class morals. She even wrote part of a novel on property speculation.

And for Lucy, speculation is at the heart of Regency architecture. Across Britain, it gave us the quintessential Regency look - the stucco terraces, the black ironwork and white columns. The newest spa town of the Regency - Leamington Spa - is a classic example. But for the most spectacular development of all, Lucy returns to London and the most ambitious project of the Regency - Regent Street. Backed by a Regent who thought it would 'eclipse Napoleon' and a government eager to cash in by developing farmland at Regent's Park, it is perhaps the most visible monument to Regency ambition. As Lucy walks its length, the street reveals itself to be at the heart of the Regency ideal and a telling expression of the Regent himself.


MON 22:00 The Killing (b00z1yqz)
Series 1

Episode 12

Sarah and Jan interrogate mayoral candidate Troels Hartmann. With the weight of the incriminating evidence pointing unequivocally to him, Troels has no choice but to divulge private information to the police and a whole new can of worms is opened as a result. Theis becomes desperate to hold on to wife Pernille, who is drifting further and further away emotionally.


MON 23:00 Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster (b007c55c)
The extraordinary story of how the 19-year-old Mary Shelley created Frankenstein, one of the world's most terrifying monsters. Daughter of Mary Woolstencraft, wife of Percy Byshe Shelley and close friend to Lord Byron, Mary Shelley's life was every bit as extraordinary as her most famous work. Dramatising the adventures, love affairs and tragedies of her young life, the film shows how her monstrous creation reflected her own extraordinary experiences.


MON 00:00 Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency (b014b7d2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


MON 01:00 The Real Jane Austen (b0074p77)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 01:55 Only Connect (b014b7d0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


MON 02:25 A Poet's Guide to Britain (b00kfc1f)
Sylvia Plath

Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores six great works of poetry set in the British landscape. Each poem explores a sense of place and identity across Britain and opens the doors to captivating stories about the places and the lives of the poets themselves.

Sylvia Plath is one of the most popular and influential poets of recent history but her poetry is often overshadowed by her life - the story of her marriage to Ted Hughes, her mental health problems and her tragic suicide at the age of 30. A rich and important area of her work that is often overlooked is the wealth of landscape poetry which she wrote throughout her life, some of the best of which was written about the Yorkshire moors.

Sheers explores this rich seam, which culminated in a poem called Wuthering Heights. It takes its title from Emily Bronte but the content and style is entirely Plath's own remarkable vision of the forbidding Pennine landscape.

Sheers visits the dramatic country around Heptonstall where the newly-married Plath came to meet her in-laws, a world of gothic architecture and fog-soaked landscapes, where the locals have a passion for ghost stories that connect directly with the tales that were told in the kitchen of the Bronte parsonage. His journey eventually leads out onto the high moors and the spectacular ruin known as Top Withens. Here amongst the wind and sheep 'where the grass is beating its head distractedly', Plath found the material for some of her most impressive writing.


MON 02:55 Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency (b014b7d2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 06 SEPTEMBER 2011

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b014b7pg)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Hidden Paintings (b01271x1)
London

Hardeep Singh Kohli goes behind the scenes at some of London's museums and galleries to find the hidden paintings of the sailors, slaves and scholars who shaped the city. Through the art, Hardeep discovers how the Thames became the entry point for thousands of foreigners in the 18th and 19th centuries, and how they established vibrant docklands communities. He explores how Irish migrants fleeing the potato famine helped build the city we know today but paid a heavy price for moving here, and discovers the portrait that inspired the slavery-abolition movement and helped change the course of history.


TUE 20:00 Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe (b0079238)
The Land of My Mother

Francesco da Mosto visits the south and Sicily, home of his mother's family for more than 500 years. Easter celebrations in the south involve the streets running red with celebrants' blood and the locals indulging in frantic dances to ward off the threat of the tarantula.

On Sicily, the brooding majesty of Etna terrifies Francesco as he stares into the volcano, but there's beauty and art at the Villa Bagheria and an explosion of baroque decadence at Noto. Finally for Francesco, there's an emotional reunion with his family, who have come down from Venice.


TUE 21:00 The Art of Russia (b00phtcz)
Smashing the Mould

Series in which art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the incredible story of Russian art - its mystery and magnificence - until now untold on British television.

The final part examines political revolution and how art was at the forefront of throwing out 1,000 years of royal rule, from its earliest revolutionary days of enthusiasm and optimism when painting died, the poster was king and the machine-made triumphed over the handmade to the dead hand of Socialist Realism.

Andrew roots out great portraits of Stalin now hidden in museum storerooms and never on public view, looks at the transformation of the Moscow metro into a great public art gallery and visits the most stunning creation of post-war Communist rule, the Space Monument.

Finally, he comes to the confusion and chaos of Russia today and how it is producing some of the world's strangest art - from heroic sculptures of Russian leader Vladimir Putin to the insides of a giant erotic apple; from the recreation of the Imperial royal family facing the firing squad to sculpture in liquid oil; from Russia's embrace of the commercial art market to a return to Socialist Realism. Russia seems to stand on another brink of revolution.


TUE 22:00 The Killing (b00z8v1b)
Series 1

Episode 13

The police and media have their spotlight trained on Troels, who might still be holding something back. Meanwhile, there are strange goings-on at the Town Hall. Things come to a head between Pernille and Theis, while Sarah receives some troubling news.


TUE 22:55 The Romantics (b007903t)
Nature

Peter Ackroyd summons the ghosts of the Romantics to tell the story of man's escape from the shackles of industry and commerce to the freedom of nature.

As the Industrial Revolution took hold of Britain during the late 18th Century, the Romantics embraced nature in search of sublime experience. But this was much more than just a walk in the country; it was a groundbreaking endeavour to understand what it means to be human. They forged poetry of radical protest against a dark world that was descending upon Britain.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was a prophecy that science might be used to corrupt nature, a warning people are still preaching to this day. The words of the Romantics are brought to life by Dudley Sutton, David Threlfall and Cara Horgan.


TUE 23:55 Abraham Lincoln: Saint or Sinner? (b00y5kdx)
To most Americans Abraham Lincoln is the nation's greatest president - a political genius who won the Civil War and ended slavery. Today the cult of Lincoln has become a multi-million dollar industry, with millions of Americans visiting his memorials and thousands of books published that present him as a saint more than a politician.

But does Lincoln really deserve all this adulation? 150 years after the war his reputation is being re-assessed, as historians begin to uncover the dark side of his life and politics. They have revealed that the president who ended slavery secretly planned to deport the freed black people out of America. Others are asking if Lincoln should be remembered as a war hero who saved the nation or as a war criminal who launched attacks on innocent southern civilians.


TUE 00:55 A Poet's Guide to Britain (b00kk4n5)
George Mackay Brown

Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores six great works of poetry set in the British landscape. Each poem explores a sense of place and identity across Britain and opens the doors to captivating stories about the places and the lives of the poets themselves.

George Mackay Brown, who died in 1996, was the great poetic voice of the Orkneys and one of the foremost Scottish poets of the 20th century. Sheers travels to the place the locals call the Venice of the North, the Orkney town of Stromness, which was Mackay Brown's home and the backdrop for much of his work, including his great poem Hamnavoe.

In Hamnavoe, the Viking name for Stromness, Mackay Brown takes the reader on a nostalgic and blustery tour of the town in the footsteps of his father, the local postman. Sheers uses the poem as a tour guide to Mackay Brown's Orkney life and work, exploring the narrow streets where George was born and wrote his first poems and taking diversions to the great cathedral of St Magnus, the Norse patron saint of the islands, and the remote island of Rackwick.

The poem opens up a moving story of a father and son and showcases Mackay Brown's exquisite, concise, gem-like writing. With ravishing views of the islands in the distinctive Orcadian light, the programme is a hymn to a unique corner of Britain. It also features, among other friends and fans of Mackay Brown, the contemporary Scottish poet Don Patterson.


TUE 01:25 Hidden Paintings (b01271x1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 01:55 Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe (b0079238)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


TUE 02:55 The Art of Russia (b00phtcz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 07 SEPTEMBER 2011

WED 19:00 World News Today (b014b9gj)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster (b007c55c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 on Monday]


WED 20:30 Storyville (b011m97n)
Law of the Dragon

Husband and Wife

Judge Chen journeys across the Xuan'en region to ensure that justice is served, even in the remotest corners of China. The hearings take place wherever he hangs the national emblem, be it nailed up in a barn or a field. In this first episode, Judge Chen presides over the case of a woman, Lin, who has filed for divorce from her husband Wang.


WED 21:00 Destination Titan (b0109ccd)
It's a voyage of exploration like no other - to Titan, Saturn's largest moon and thought to resemble our own early Earth. For a small team of British scientists this would be the culmination of a lifetime's endeavour - the flight alone, some two billion miles, would take a full seven years.

This is the story of the space probe they built, the sacrifices they made and their hopes for the landing. Would their ambitions survive the descent into the unknown on Titan's surface?


WED 22:00 The Killing (b00z8v1d)
Series 1

Episode 14

With a major part of the investigation dead in its tracks, the screws are tightened on principal suspect Troels Hartmann, and political opponent Bremer loses no time in taking advantage of the situation. But Sarah and Jan persist with their own line of enquiry. Pernille is increasingly out of touch with the family, while the emotional state of the cast-out Theis takes a nosedive.


WED 23:00 The Story of British Pathé (b0141mmz)
Entertaining Britain

While the company was famous for its pioneering news reports, it also produced immensely popular 'cinemagazines', which entertained cinemagoers for decades. Initially made to boost the nation's morale after the First World War, entertaining strands such as Pathe Pictorial and Eve's Film Review were designed to appeal to women who were interested in fashion, celebrities and movie stars - and offered plenty of handy hints for those running the home. In the 1930s, the arrival of synchronised sound increased the popularity of cinemagazines, and the company launched Pathetone Weekly - a strand that featured what Pathe believed were the 'novel, amusing and strange' dimensions of our national life.


WED 00:00 Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster (b007c55c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 on Monday]


WED 01:00 The Highest Court in the Land: Justice Makers (b00xz0s5)
They are the UK's most powerful arbiters of justice and now, for the first time, four of the Justices of the Supreme Court talk frankly and openly about the nature of justice and how they make their decisions. The film offers a revealing glimpse of the human characters behind the judgments and explores why the Supreme Court and its members are fundamental to our democracy.

The 11 men and one woman who make up the UK Supreme Court have the last say on the most controversial and difficult cases in the land. What they decide binds every citizen. But are their rulings always fair, do their feelings ever get in the way of their judgments and are they always right?

In the first 14 months of the court they have ruled on MPs' expenses, which led to David Chaytor's prosecution, changed the status of pre-nuptial agreements and battled with the government over control orders and the Human Rights Act.

They explain what happens when they cannot agree and there is a divided judgment, and how they avoid letting their personal feelings effect their interpretation of the law. And they face up to the difficult issue of diversity; there is only one woman on the court, and she is the only Justice who went to a non-fee-paying school.


WED 02:00 Justice (b00xz0pv)
The Moral Side of Murder

Professor Michael Sandel presents the first in a series of lectures from his Harvard undergraduate course in Political Philosophy. He explores the morality of murder and asks whether there can ever be a case for killing.


WED 02:25 Storyville (b011m97n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


WED 02:55 Destination Titan (b0109ccd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 08 SEPTEMBER 2011

THU 19:00 World News Today (b014b9ng)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 The Sky at Night (b07pf0n5)
Final Frontier

The future of manned space flight is entering an uncertain phase, with our once vivid dreams of returning to the Moon and landing on Mars shattered by budget cuts and lack of will. Sir Patrick Moore discusses the demise of the shuttle programme with astronaut Piers Sellers, and also goes on an interstellar journey with Project Icarus, the visionary idea of how man might one day visit other worlds.


THU 20:00 Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency (b014b7d2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]


THU 21:00 The Story of British Pathé (b014bb01)
Around the World

For more than half a century film and newsreel company British Pathe documented almost every aspect of British life, but it also captivated audiences with enthralling stories from overseas.

In the age before mass tourism made international travel affordable and accessible to most of us, their sumptuous travelogues and anthropological documentaries offered British cinemagoers a rare opportunity to glimpse faraway worlds. For decades Pathe dutifully covered royal tours to every corner of the British Empire, but by the 1950s, when the first package holidays were sold, the company also recorded the experiences of the first generations of Britons who were able to indulge in leisure travel around the globe.

This film examines the unique footage captured by the company's cameras across five continents during Pathe's seven decades of international film-making.


THU 22:00 The Killing (b00zhcf2)
Series 1

Episode 15

Acclaimed Danish crime series spanning the course of a 20-day murder investigation.

Sarah has walked into a life-threatening situation but neither Jan nor anyone else knows her whereabouts. Meanwhile, it looks as if the puzzle of the murderer's identity might finally be resolved.

At the town hall, Bremer swoops in to deliver a coup de grace to Troels' political career, while a broken-down Pernille needs help when she gets into hot water. Theis continues to be untraceable.


THU 23:00 Everything and Nothing (b00yb59m)
Everything

Two-part documentary which deals with two of the deepest questions there are - what is everything, and what is nothing?

In two epic, surreal and mind-expanding films, Professor Jim Al-Khalili searches for an answer to these questions as he explores the true size and shape of the universe and delves into the amazing science behind apparent nothingness.

The first part, Everything, sees Professor Al-Khalili set out to discover what the universe might actually look like. The journey takes him from the distant past to the boundaries of the known universe. Along the way he charts the remarkable stories of the men and women who discovered the truth about the cosmos and investigates how our understanding of space has been shaped by both mathematics and astronomy.


THU 00:00 The Story of British Pathé (b014bb01)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


THU 01:00 The Sky at Night (b07pf0n5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 01:30 Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency (b014b7d2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]


THU 02:30 A Poet's Guide to Britain (b00kps7f)
Matthew Arnold

Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores six great works of poetry set in the British landscape. Each poem explores a sense of place and identity across Britain and opens the doors to captivating stories about the places and the lives of the poets themselves.

In 1851, a young school inspector and his wife spent a night of their honeymoon in a hotel in Dover overlooking the beach. Standing at the bedroom window and staring out at the moonlit sea, this newly-married man wrote a poem that sent a chill through his own and future generations - a poem that ends with the shocking conclusion that there is no hope, no comfort and no purpose in life.

Sheers goes in search of this poet, Matthew Arnold, and discovers what drove him to write his bleak but tremendous poem Dover Beach. He goes to Rugby School to delve into Arnold's relationship with his father, the great Victorian headmaster Dr Arnold, and visits Oxford to explore the extraordinary impact that the religious thinker John Henry Newman made on so many young people of the age. He also travels to the Swiss lake resort of Thun, where Arnold lost his heart to a mysterious woman called Marguerite.

It's the story of a rebellious young man trying to make sense of the world and includes contributions from Archbishop of Canterbury and poet Rowan Williams and rising poetry star, Daljit Nagra.


THU 03:00 The Story of British Pathé (b014bb01)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



FRIDAY 09 SEPTEMBER 2011

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b014bcbk)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 BBC Proms (b014bj34)
2011

Nigel Kennedy Plays Bach

Suzy Klein introduces 'people's violinist' Nigel Kennedy's return to the Proms with a concert of solo Bach, as he performs Partitas No 2 and No 3. Kennedy's other great musical love is jazz and he stresses the parallels between the music of Bach and jazz. The concert ends with Kennedy and three of his friends playing arrangements of numbers by Fats Waller.


FRI 21:00 Doris Day - Virgin Territory (b0074rwd)
Doris Day has often been dismissed as an actress and overlooked as a singer, despite career highs such as Calamity Jane and Pillow Talk. Covering her early years as a band singer, and her troubled private life, this documentary re-evaluates one of the screen's most enduring legends.


FRI 22:00 The Doris Day Special (b014hv2v)
1971 music programme hosted by Doris Day, with guests Perry Como and Rock Hudson. Doris sings her hits It's Magic, Sentimental Journey and Everybody Loves a Lover, along with Both Sides Now, The Gypsy in My Soul and a medley of old favorites with Perry Como, who also performs the Jimmy Webb classic Didn't We.


FRI 22:55 Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey (b014hv2x)
Ohio-born actress, singer and TV star Doris Day is now 87 and about to release her first album in nearly two decades, My Heart. Day was one of the biggest box-office stars in American movie history, a huge TV star who began her careeer as a big band singer and is now best-known as an animal rights activist. In this 1992 documentary originally aired on PBS in the US and unavailable since, Doris appears in original interview footage to discuss her life and career. Hosted by actress and friend Betty White, the retrospective also includes footage from Doris's films along with comments from James Garner, Kirstie Alley, Doris's late son Terry Melcher, writer John Updike, singer Rosemary Clooney and others.


FRI 23:50 Doris Day - Virgin Territory (b0074rwd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 00:50 The Doris Day Special (b014hv2v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


FRI 01:45 Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey (b014hv2x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:55 today]


FRI 02:40 BBC Proms (b014bj34)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]




LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)

A Poet's Guide to Britain 02:25 MON (b00kfc1f)

A Poet's Guide to Britain 00:55 TUE (b00kk4n5)

A Poet's Guide to Britain 02:30 THU (b00kps7f)

Abraham Lincoln: Saint or Sinner? 23:55 TUE (b00y5kdx)

Acoustic at the BBC 00:00 SUN (b0141mz1)

BBC Four Sessions 01:00 SUN (b0074sjm)

BBC Proms 19:00 SUN (b014bh61)

BBC Proms 02:00 SUN (b014bh61)

BBC Proms 19:30 FRI (b014bj34)

BBC Proms 02:40 FRI (b014bj34)

Destination Titan 21:00 WED (b0109ccd)

Destination Titan 02:55 WED (b0109ccd)

Doris Day - Virgin Territory 21:00 FRI (b0074rwd)

Doris Day - Virgin Territory 23:50 FRI (b0074rwd)

Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey 22:55 FRI (b014hv2x)

Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey 01:45 FRI (b014hv2x)

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 21:00 MON (b014b7d2)

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 00:00 MON (b014b7d2)

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 02:55 MON (b014b7d2)

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 20:00 THU (b014b7d2)

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 01:30 THU (b014b7d2)

Everything and Nothing 23:00 THU (b00yb59m)

Folk America at the Barbican 21:40 SUN (b00jp7nm)

Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe 20:00 TUE (b0079238)

Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe 01:55 TUE (b0079238)

Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster 23:00 MON (b007c55c)

Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster 19:30 WED (b007c55c)

Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster 00:00 WED (b007c55c)

Hidden Paintings 19:30 TUE (b01271x1)

Hidden Paintings 01:25 TUE (b01271x1)

How a Choir Works 20:40 SUN (b00mqly3)

Justice 02:00 WED (b00xz0pv)

Life 19:00 SAT (b00ncr13)

Life 02:15 SAT (b00ncr13)

Michael Wood's Story of England 20:00 SAT (b00tw231)

Michael Wood's Story of England 01:15 SAT (b00tw231)

Only Connect 20:30 MON (b014b7d0)

Only Connect 01:55 MON (b014b7d0)

Paul Merton and Nicholas Parsons: Me & Arthur Haynes 00:15 SAT (b00z1z43)

Spiral 21:00 SAT (b0074sk6)

Spiral 21:50 SAT (b0074sl0)

Storyville 20:30 WED (b011m97n)

Storyville 02:25 WED (b011m97n)

The Art of Russia 21:00 TUE (b00phtcz)

The Art of Russia 02:55 TUE (b00phtcz)

The Doris Day Special 22:00 FRI (b014hv2v)

The Doris Day Special 00:50 FRI (b014hv2v)

The Highest Court in the Land: Justice Makers 01:00 WED (b00xz0s5)

The Killing 22:00 SUN (b00z1yqx)

The Killing 22:00 MON (b00z1yqz)

The Killing 22:00 TUE (b00z8v1b)

The Killing 22:00 WED (b00z8v1d)

The Killing 22:00 THU (b00zhcf2)

The Real Jane Austen 19:30 MON (b0074p77)

The Real Jane Austen 01:00 MON (b0074p77)

The Romantics 22:55 TUE (b007903t)

The Sky at Night 19:30 THU (b07pf0n5)

The Sky at Night 01:00 THU (b07pf0n5)

The Story of British Pathé 23:00 WED (b0141mmz)

The Story of British Pathé 21:00 THU (b014bb01)

The Story of British Pathé 00:00 THU (b014bb01)

The Story of British Pathé 03:00 THU (b014bb01)

The Story of Variety with Michael Grade 22:40 SAT (b00z1z0g)

Top of the Pops 23:40 SAT (b0141mmx)

Top of the Pops 03:15 SAT (b0141mmx)

When Rock Goes Acoustic 23:00 SUN (b0141myx)

World News Today 19:00 MON (b014b6xf)

World News Today 19:00 TUE (b014b7pg)

World News Today 19:00 WED (b014b9gj)

World News Today 19:00 THU (b014b9ng)

World News Today 19:00 FRI (b014bcbk)