SUNDAY 18 AUGUST 2013

SUN 19:00 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.


SUN 19:30 BBC Proms (b038wqc0)
2013

Proms on Four: 20th Century Classics - New Music at the Proms

Brand new sounds from the Proms in Tom Service's modern music series. Tom is joined by Southbank classical music supremo Gillian Moore to discuss a selection of premieres and new commissions from across the season at the Royal Albert Hall. Music ranges from the world premieres of John McCabe's Joybox and Mark-Anthony Turnage's Frieze to Murray Gold's new composition to mark Doctor Who's 50th birthday.


SUN 21:00 The Review Show (b038rhxp)
Kirsty Wark is joined by writer and critic Paul Morley, crime writer Denise Mina and comedian and writer Mark Thomas to discuss some of the biggest events at this year's Edinburgh Festival. Under the microscope this month: Grid Iron's site-specific theatre extravaganza Leaving Planet Earth, Margaret Atwood's new novel MaddAddam and a retrospective of work by pioneering Korean-American video artist Nam June Paik.


SUN 22:00 The Fairytale Castles of King Ludwig II with Dan Cruickshank (b036f9vc)
Ludwig II of Bavaria, more commonly known by his nicknames the Swan King or the Dream King, is a legendary figure - the handsome boy-king, loved by his people, betrayed by his cabinet and found dead in tragic and mysterious circumstances. He spent his life in pursuit of the ideal of beauty, an ideal that found expression in three of the most extraordinary, ornate architectural schemes imaginable - the castle of Neuschwanstein and the palaces of Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee. Today, these three buildings are among Germany's biggest tourist attractions.

In this documentary, Dan Cruickshank explores the rich aesthetic of Ludwig II - from the mock-medievalism of Neuschwanstein, the iconic fairytale castle that became the inspiration for the one in Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty, to the rich Baroque splendour of Herrenchiemsee, Ludwig's answer to Versailles. Dan argues that Ludwig's castles are more than flamboyant kitsch and are, in fact, the key to unravelling the eternal enigma of Ludwig II.


SUN 23:00 Alan Whicker's Journey of a Lifetime (b00jtg0n)
The Americas

Celebrating a remarkable fifty years on television, TV legend and undisputed travel king Alan Whicker sets off round the world on a journey reflecting his incredibly varied life and career.

Alan travels from West to East across America to track down his all-time favourite couple, a prolific Hollywood plastic surgeon and his wife, who also happens to be his favourite patient. When originally shown, they generated the biggest ever postbag of Whicker's career, but after thirty years will they still be together - and what will all the surgery have done to them?

Also in this episode, Whicker explores once more the closed community of the ultra-wealthy ladies of Palm Beach. He revisits the groundbreaking 1960s programme where he filmed the trial of modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, who were both facing the death penalty, and looks back at startling footage of America's first so-called serial killer seconds after his arrest. Whicker also re-examines his extraordinary interview with Haitian dictator Papa Doc, his most critically acclaimed film for which he won the prestigious Dumont Award.


SUN 00:00 The Lighthouse Stevensons (b00y6hym)
The story of the remarkable family who tamed the wild Scottish coastline, told 200 years after the building of their first iconic lighthouse, the Bell Rock.


SUN 01:00 Punk Britannia (p00s81jz)
Pre-Punk 1972-1976

Narrated by Peter Capaldi, this opener of a three-part documentary series in BBC FOUR's celebrated 'Britannia' strand is scheduled to chime with the 35th anniversary of the Queen's Silver Jubilee and the arrival of punk as national and then international music culture. The film explores the road to punk in Britain, which begins in the early 70s with a young generation already conscious that they have 'missed the 60s party' and are stuck in a Britain heading for economic woes and dwindling opportunities. Meanwhile the music of the day - prog and super rock - seems to ask not for their interest and involvement, but only their awe and their money.

But before the punk generation finally arises to have its say during 1976 come a group of pub rockers, a generation of bands sandwiched between 60s hippies and mid-70s punks who will help pave the way towards the short, sharp shock of punk, only to be elbowed aside by the emergence of the Sex Pistols, the Clash et al.

An unlikely cast of characters set the scene for punk in early 70s Britain. Reacting against overblown super rock of the day and the glam their younger sisters like on Top of the Pops, pub rock set the template for punk. Small venues, fast retro rock 'n' roll and bags of attitude typified bands like Dr Feelgood, Ducks Deluxe, Kilburn and the High Roads and Eddie and the Hotrods. These bands engendered a small London scene which is sometimes forgotten and helped define the Pistols, the Clash and the Damned, both positively and negatively.

Featuring copious unseen archive footage and interviews with John Lydon, Paul Weller, Mick Jones, Wilko Johnson, Nick Lowe, Adam Ant, Brian James and many more.


SUN 02:00 Punk Britannia (b01jmwjd)
Punk 1976-1978

Daydreaming England was about to be rudely awoken as punk emerged from the London underground scene. A nation dropped its dinner in its lap when the Sex Pistols swore on primetime television. Punk had finally found its enemy- the establishment. In Manchester, the Buzzcocks' self-released Spiral Scratch was a clarion call for a do-it-yourself generation, while the Clash's White Riot tour took punk's message across Britain. Moral outrage followed the Pistols around the country, effectively outlawing punk - but there was one refuge for the music. Nestled in the wasteland of 70s Covent Garden, the Roxy was punk's cathedral. Punk interlopers the Jam raised the bar for lyricism, challenging punk's London elite.

Punk also began to extend its three-chord vocabulary through an alliance with reggae, memorably captured by the Clash on White Man in Hammersmith Palais. With their second single, God Save the Queen, the Pistols scored a direct hit at the establishment in summer '77, but a disastrous PR stunt on a Thames barge would mark a turning point. The darker underbelly of the summer of '77 would see race riots in Lewisham. This street turbulence was the backdrop for a rawer, working class sound. If the Pistols and the Clash had been the theory, a second wave led by Sham 69 was the reality.

By '78 punk was becoming a costume - the very pop orthodoxy it had originally sought to destroy. For many punk ended when the Pistols split, beset by internal problems, following an abortive tour of the USA in January '78. Those practitioners who would go on to enjoy sustained success sought to modify their sound to survive, such as Siouxsie Sioux. Punk had shown what it was against, now it was time to show what it was for in the post-punk era.

With John Lydon, Mick Jones, Siouxsie Sioux and Paul Weller.


SUN 03:00 Punk Britannia (b01jv7f2)
Post-Punk 1978-1981

Punk had shown what it was against - now what was it for? In the wake of the Pistols' demise a new generation of musicians would re-imagine the world they lived in through the music they made. Freed up by punk's DIY ethos, a kaleidoscope of musical influences broke three chord conformity.

Public Image Limited allowed Johnny Rotten to become John Lydon the artist. In Manchester, Magazine would be first to record in the wake of the Pistols' split, Mark E Smith made street poetry while Ian Curtis turned punk's external rage into an existential drama. A raft of left-wing art school intellectuals like Gang of Four and Wire imbued post-punk with a sense of radical politics and conceptualism while the Pop Group infused funk with anti-capitalist sentiment in the early days of Thatcher. Flirting with fascism and violence, the working class Oi! movement tried to drag punk from the Kings Road into the heart of the East End whilst Anarcho punks Crass embarked on the most radical vision of any.

In a time beset by dread and tension perhaps the biggest paranoia was Mutually Assured Destruction essayed perfectly by Young Marble Giants' Final Day. Released in the height of Thatcherism, Ghost Town by The Specials marked a parting of the post-punk waves. Some would remain avowedly uncommercial whilst others would explore pop as a new avenue in the new decade. The song that perhaps summed up post-punk's journey was Orange Juice's Rip It Up and Start Again.

With John Lydon, Howard Devoto, Mark E Smith, Peter Hook, Jerry Dammers, The Raincoats, Wire, Jah Wobble, Mark Stewart, Edwyn Collins, Young Marble Giants and many more.