Steve Backshall heads a team descending into the crater of a giant extinct volcano covered in thick jungle. Deep in the heart of the remote island of New Guinea, this lost land is protected on all sides by fortress walls half a mile high. They are the first outsiders ever to penetrate this hidden world, which biologists have long believed could be home to spectacular new creatures.
George McGavin travels east to an erupting volcano and discovers a rare bird that depends on the hot ash for its survival. Sudden explosions bring the trip to a quick halt as giant boulders crash into camp.
The series culminates in the lost world of the crater as Steve and wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan discover two large mammals that have no fear of people and are totally new to science - a giant rat that is as big as a cat, and a cuscus, which is a tree-climbing marsupial.
Professor Mark Miodownik concludes his odyssey of the stuff of modern life. This time he looks at how materials have enabled us to indulge our curiosity about the world around us. To go further and travel faster. He looks at how the bicycle suddenly stirred our national gene pool, why we should all be grateful for exploding glass and what levitation has to do with discovering your inner self. On the road and in the lab with dramatic experiments, Mark reveals why the everyday and even the mundane is anything but.
The double murder investigation steers Laure's team towards a group of bank raiders. Laure is not convinced of Jaulin's involvement, but Roban insists that the father has failed to tell the whole truth. In order to impress the commissioner, Herville entrusts Gilou with the job of breaking up a network of muggers. Experts called to testify in the case of the dead police officer show that the police manipulated the evidence.
Laure tries to convince Roban that he is mistaken in his pursuit of Jaulin and decides to concentrate on tracking down the raiders, but new evidence emerges which proves damning for Jaulin. Herville piles the pressure on his team to nail the mugging ring, so Gilou proposes an unorthodox alternative. While representing a civil case against corrupt police officers, Josephine Karlsson comes up against an infamous, amoral lawyer by the name of Eric Edelman.
Blondie's album Parallel Lines captured the spirit of 1970s New York at a time of poverty, crime and an exploding artistic life, selling 16 million copies. This is the story of that album, that time and that city, told primarily by the seven individuals who wrote, produced and performed it. It was a calculated and painstaking endeavour to produce sure-fire hits - whatever it took.
The film follows Debbie Harry and the rest of the Blondie crew as they head into the studio to record their game-changing album with producer Mike Chapman. It also features commentary from Harry herself about writing music, the media's focus on her appearance and lyrically inspirational ex-boyfriends.
In 1978 the New York band Blondie had two punk albums behind them and were establishing a name for themselves at the club CBGBs on New York's Lower East Side. Then Chrysalis Records exec Terry Ellis saw them and spent a massive $1m buying out their recording contract. He had to ensure that their next album was a hit - there was no room for error. To do this he brought in maverick Australian record producer Mike Chapman, who already had a string of hits under his belt. Mike's job was to turn this crew of New York punks into world stars - but did they have the popular songs which would appeal to a wider non-punk audience?
At a time when rich creativity, grinding poverty and drug abuse were hand in hand on the sidewalks of the Lower East Side, the music and lyrics of Parallel Lines celebrated and captured this vibrant and edgy chemistry, shooting the band to international stardom.
A look back at the 2014 Friday lunchtime set at the festival by legendary New York group Blondie. Led by Debbie Harry, the band celebrate their official 40th anniversary this year and at Worthy Farm, in between the rain showers, work through a set that includes some of their many classic hits plus a track or two from their most recent album.
Documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage.
In the late 1970s, small pockets of electronic artists including The Human League, Daniel Miller and Cabaret Voltaire were inspired by Kraftwerk and JG Ballard, and they dreamt of the sound of the future against the backdrop of bleak, high-rise Britain.
The crossover moment came in 1979 when Gary Numan's appearance on Top of the Pops with Tubeway Army's Are 'Friends' Electric? heralded the arrival of synthpop. Four lads from Basildon known as Depeche Mode would come to own the new sound, whilst post-punk bands like Ultravox, Soft Cell, OMD and Yazoo took the synth out of the pages of NME and onto the front page of Smash Hits.
By 1983, acts like Pet Shop Boys and New Order were showing that the future of electronic music would lie in dance music.
Contributors include Philip Oakey, Vince Clarke, Martin Gore, Bernard Sumner, Gary Numan and Neil Tennant.
SUNDAY 18 JANUARY 2015
SUN 19:00 Tales from the Royal Bedchamber (b0386lxs)
Lucy Worsley gets into bed with our past monarchs to uncover the tales from the royal bedchamber. She reveals that our obsession with royal bedrooms, births and succession is nothing new. In fact, the rise and fall of their magnificent beds reflects the changing fortunes of the monarchy itself.
SUN 20:00 Queen Victoria's Letters: A Monarch Unveiled (b04pl2mn)
Episode 2
AN Wilson discovers the real story behind the woman who supposedly spent the last half of her life in hiding, mourning the loss of her beloved Prince Albert. Alongside this well-known image of Victoria as the weeping widow, Wilson reveals that the years after Albert's death were actually a process of liberation and her most productive and exciting.
By examining her closest relationships in the four decades after Albert's death, Wilson tells the story of the Queen's gradual freedom from a life spent under the shadow of domineering men. Victoria's marriage had been a source of constraint as well as love, as Albert had used her pregnancies as a way to gain power and punished her for resenting it. But in her widowhood Queen Victoria, although bereft and deranged, was free to move in the world of politics and make deep friendships without concern.
From the controversial friendship with her highland servant John Brown to her most unconventional behaviour with her young Indian servant Abdul Karim, Wilson uncovers Victoria as a woman who was anything but 'Victorian'. Far from being prim and proper, she loved life in all its richness - she was blind to class and colour and, contrary to what we think, had a great sense of humour.
Queen Victoria's journals and letters are read by Anna Chancellor throughout.
SUN 21:00 The Joy of Mozart (b04yrj6n)
Tom Service plunges into the life and times of Mozart to try and rediscover the greatness and humanity of the living man in his moment. Mozart's prodigious output and untimely death have helped place him on a pedestal that can often blind us to the unique brilliance of his work in the context of his life and times. Tackling the sentimental tourist industry of Salzburg and the cloying reverence in which Mozart is too often held, Service visits the key cities and rooms in which Mozart lived and worked, plays some of Mozart's original instruments and scores, and gradually uncovers the brilliance and originality of his work as the 18th century turns into the early 19th.
There is the prodigious childhood when Mozart was feted as an infant phenomenon around Europe's most glittering courts, and his golden decade in Vienna in which masterpiece followed masterpiece - operas, symphonies, piano concertos, string quartets - as if this short, high-voiced man-child must have been taking dictation from some divine source, until his death at the age of just 35 in 1791.
Even more than the music, Mozart's tragic demise sets the seal on his myth. The trajectory of Mozart's life sets the template for the romantic paradigm whose throes we are still in today, which requires our creative heroes to die young to prove that they were too good for this madding world, whether it be Wolfgang Amadeus or Jimi Hendrix.
Service travels from London to Vienna and Salzberg, unpicking the living, breathing genius that was Mozart. With Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Nicola Benedetti, Paul Morley and others.
SUN 22:00 Poet on the Frontline (b050d5t8)
A window into the incredible and dangerous world of daredevil war correspondent and author Ryszard Kapuscinski.
One of the most important literary voices today, Kapuscinski has spent his life trying to stay alive on foreign battlefields and struggling to stay published in the face of censorship in his native Poland. Known as 'Indiana Jones with a notepad', he is a legend among his peers, a man who has been looking for the truths of human experience in the most dangerous places.
Film-maker Gabrielle Pfeiffer travelled with Kapuscinski to four countries, capturing his true character, his passion, his humour and his demons. Her film unfolds in an engaging episodic format, in which the echoes of Kapuscinski's childhood as a war refugee interweave with his later experiences on the battlefields of the third world, in a poetic reverie of the tragedy and the absurdity of war.
SUN 23:00 BBC Four Sessions (b00ry9mr)
The Great American Songbook
Highlights of a unique gathering of eclectic artists at Air Studios in London to celebrate the songs and composers of the Great American Songbook.
Paolo Nutini sings the classic composition Nature Boy, popularised by Nat King Cole, and has fun with the songs of Louis Prima. Melody Gardot enigmatically explores the songbooks of Cole Porter and Harold Arlen, while Claire Martin swings it and performs classic songs by Rodgers and Hart, and Irving Berlin.
Sharleen Spiteri presents her accomplished interpretation of the Billie Holiday classic God Bless the Child and Gwyneth Herbert reinterprets the Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn classic Love Me or Leave Me with loops and beats. Jose James delivers a smooth and swinging version of Just Squeeze Me, a song made popular by Duke Ellington, while Krystle Warren performs a bluesy version of Cole Porter's risque Love for Sale and a string-laden performance of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.
The session is a celebration of the music and popular songs of the famous and prolific American composers of the 1920s and onwards. Composers such as Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Hoagy Carmichael, to name but a few - composers who wrote the tunes of Broadway theatre and Hollywood musicals that earned enduring popularity before the dawning of rock 'n' roll.
These songwriters have penned songs that have entered the general consciousness and which are now best described as standards - tunes which every musician and singer aspires to include in their repertoire, such as Over the Rainbow, Cheek to Cheek, Love for Sale, Love Me or Leave Me, Get Out of Town and The Lady Is a Tramp.
SUN 00:00 Sound of Song (b04y4qpt)
The Recording Revolution
Songs are the soundtrack of our lives and it takes a kind of genius to create a true pop masterpiece. But, as Neil Brand argues, there is more to consider in the story of what makes a great song. Neil looks at every moment in the life cycle of a song - how they are written, performed, recorded and the changing ways we have listened to them. He reveals how it is the wonderful alchemy of all of these elements that makes songs so special to us.
To open the series, Neil investigates how songs were recorded for the first time, the listening revolution in the home that followed and the birth of a new style of singing that came with the arrival of the microphone - crooning. He also looks at the songwriting genius of Irving Berlin and the interpretative power of singers Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby.
SUN 01:00 ... Sings the Great American Songbook (b00rs3w4)
Presenting the best and most eclectic performances on the BBC from the world's best-known artists performing their interpretations of classic tracks from The Great American Songbook.
In chronological order, this programme takes us through a myriad of BBC studio performances, from Dame Shirley Bassey in 1966 performing The Lady is A Tramp, to Bryan Ferry in 1974 on Twiggy's BBC primetime show performing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, to Captain Sensible on Top of the Pops in 1982 with his number one hit version of Happy Talk, through to Kirsty MacColl singing Miss Otis Regrets in 1994 to Jamie Cullum with his version of I Get a Kick Out Of You on Parkinson in 2004 and bang up to date with Brit winner Florence from Florence and the Machine performing My Baby Just Cares for Me with Jools Holland on his Annual Hootenanny at the end of 2009.
The Great American Songbook can best be described as the music and popular songs of the famous and prolific American composers of the 1920s and onwards. Composers such as Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Hoagy Carmichael to name but a few... songwriters who wrote the tunes of Broadway theatre and Hollywood musicals that earned enduring popularity before the dawning of rock 'n' roll.
These famous songwriters have penned songs which have entered the general consciousness and which are now best described as standards - tunes which every musician and singer aspires to include in their repertoire.
SUN 02:00 Blues at the BBC (b00k36m5)
Collection of performances by British and American blues artists on BBC programmes such as The Beat Room, A Whole Scene Going, The Old Grey Whistle Test and The Late Show.
Includes the seminal slide guitar of Son House, the British R&B of The Kinks, the unmistakeable electric sound of BB King and Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and John Lee Hooker, as well as less familiar material from the likes of Delaney and Bonnie, Freddie King and Long John Baldry.
SUN 03:00 The Joy of Mozart (b04yrj6n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
MONDAY 19 JANUARY 2015
MON 19:00 World News Today (b04yqzq7)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
MON 19:30 World War I at Home (b045gjnt)
Whose Side Are You On?
Historian Professor Jean Seaton uncovers the story of industrial conflict in Devon during World War One.
MON 20:00 Hidden Histories: Britain's Oldest Family Businesses (b03slwfr)
Durtnell the Builder
Alex Durtnell's family have been builders for over 400 years. We follow Alex as he travels back through the centuries and rediscovers the houses his family have built, right back to the reign of Elizabeth I.
Narrated by Margaret Mountford.
MON 21:00 British Gardens in Time (b041m5bq)
Biddulph Grange
Biddulph Grange, the best-surviving Victorian garden in the country, takes the visitor on a whistlestop journey around the world from China to Egypt in a series of gardens connected by tunnels and subterranean passageways.
Biddulph was created at the height of the British Empire by James Bateman, the son of a wealthy industrialist. Bateman was fascinated by botany and the emerging technologies of the Victorian era, filling his garden with rare specimens tracked down by the Victorian plant hunters laid out to designs that purported to come from around the world but were actually inspired by the Great Exhibition and painted plates from the Potteries.
But Bateman's fascination for all things new would come into conflict with his deeply held religious beliefs, leading him into open conflict with Darwin, financial ruin and the eventual loss of his beloved garden.
MON 22:00 The Inca: Masters of the Clouds (b04y4q35)
Clash of Empires
In the concluding part, Dr Jago Cooper argues that it wasn't simply a clash of arms that destroyed the Inca but a clash of worldviews. He travels from Peru to the far north of Inca territory in Ecuador to reveal how the great strengths of the empire suddenly became factors in its rapid demise. The Spanish conquest of the Inca destroyed one of the most remarkable empires in the world, yet the Inca legacy leaves a great deal for modern civilisations to learn from.
MON 23:00 Good Morning Karachi (b039y4x7)
In Karachi, Rafina, who is living in poverty in with her mother and brother, gets a job at a huge beauty company through her Aunt Rosie. Quickly noticed by her superiors as a beauty, she is given work as a model and promises of having the world at her feet. It's her big chance, but the job incurs the disapproval of both her family and her more traditionally-minded fiance, as tension and distrust of the West begin to rise around them in the city.
In Urdu and English with English subtitles.
MON 00:20 Horizon (b01b45zh)
2011-2012
Playing God
Adam Rutherford meets a new creature created by American scientists - the spider-goat. It is part goat, part spider, and its milk can be used to create an artificial spider's web.
It is part of a new field of research, synthetic biology, with a radical aim - to break down nature into spare parts so that we can rebuild it however we please.
This technology is already being used to make bio-diesel to power cars. Other researchers are looking at how we might, one day, control human emotions by sending 'biological machines' into our brains.
MON 01:20 Tubular Bells: The Mike Oldfield Story (b03cw8g0)
In 1973, an album was released that against all odds and expectations went to the top of the UK charts. The fact the album launched a record label that became one of the most recognisable brand names in the world (Virgin), formed the soundtrack to one of the biggest movies of the decade (The Exorcist), became the biggest selling instrumental album of all time, would eventually go on to sell over 16 million copies and was performed almost single-handedly by a 19-year-old makes the story all the more incredible. That album was Tubular Bells, and the young and painfully shy musician was Mike Oldfield.
This documentary features contributions from Sir Richard Branson, Danny Boyle, Mike's family and the original engineers of the Tubular Bells album among others. The spine of the film is an extended interview with Mike himself, where he takes us through the events that led to him writing Tubular Bells - growing up with a mother with severe mental health problems; the refuge he sought in music as a child, with talent that led to him playing in folk clubs aged 12 and signing with his sister's folk group at only 15; his frightening experience of taking LSD at 16; and finally arriving at the Manor Recording Studios as a young session musician where he gave a demo tape to a recording engineer who passed it along to young entrepreneur Richard Branson.
After the album's huge success, Mike retreated to a Hereford hilltop, shunned public life and became a recluse until he took part in a controversial therapy which changed his life.
In 2012 Mike captured the public's imagination once again when he was asked to perform at the London Olympic Opening Ceremony, where Tubular Bells was the soundtrack to 20 minutes of the one-hour ceremony.
Filmed on location at his home recording studio in Nassau, Mike also plays the multiple instruments of Tubular Bells and shows how the groundbreaking piece of music was put together.
MON 02:20 Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells (b00g8h9q)
A live studio performance from 1974 of Mike Oldfield's composition Tubular Bells, which had been acclaimed in the press as a unique achievement in popular music.
MON 02:45 British Gardens in Time (b041m5bq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUESDAY 20 JANUARY 2015
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b04yqzqd)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 World War I at Home (b045gjf6)
The Safe House
A century after the start of the First World War, Louise Minchin reveals the story of Dunham Massey stately home in Cheshire which was turned into a military hospital for injured Tommies.
TUE 20:00 Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls (b01jmt5t)
Act Three: At Work and At Play
Lucy Worsley explores the lives of some of the most remarkable women of the age, including writers, actresses, travellers and scientists.
Against a backdrop of religious and political turmoil, the rise of print culture, the rapid growth of London, the burgeoning scientific revolution and the country's flourishing trading empire, she meets a host of female mavericks who took advantage of the extraordinary changes afoot to challenge the traditional male bastions of society.
Women like Nell Gwyn, the most famous of a new generation of actresses; Aphra Behn, the first professional female writer; and Christian Davies, who disguised herself as a man to fight as a soldier - all of them gained notoriety and celebrity, challenging the inequalities of the age. As Lucy discovers, these women's attitudes, ambitions and achievements were surprisingly modern.
TUE 21:00 Hidden Killers (b050d700)
The Tudor Home
Dr Suzannah Lipscomb takes us back to Tudor times in search of the household killers of the era.
It was a great age of exploration and science where adventurers returned from the New World with exotic goods previously unknown in Europe. An era in which the newly emergent middle classes had, for the first time, money for luxuries and early consumer goods, many of which contained hidden dangers.
The period also saw a radical evolution in the very idea of 'home'. For the likes of Tudor merchants, their houses became multi-room structures instead of the single-room habitations that had been the norm (aristocracy excepted). This forced the homebuilders of the day to engineer radical new design solutions and technologies, some of which were lethal.
Suzannah discovers that in Tudor houses the threat of a grisly, unpleasant death was never far away in a world (and a home) still mired in the grime and filth of the medieval period - and she shows how we still live with the legacy of some of these killers today.
TUE 22:00 Smiley's People (b0079sbp)
Episode 3
Vladimir has two proofs, but Smiley has only found one. It was an erotic photograph of Otto Leipzig, the General's lieutenant. Now aware that Vladimir has quarrelled with his postman Toby Esterhase, Smiley plans to visit old friends.
TUE 23:00 Kings of Rock and Roll (b007c95q)
A journey back to the 1950s for a look at the wildest pop music of all time in a film that tells the stories of Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly, giants from an era when pop music really was mad, bad and dangerous to know.
The programme features the artists themselves, alongside people like Bill Haley's original Comets, The Crickets, Buddy Holly's widow Maria Elena, Jerry Lee Lewis's former wife Myra Gail and his sister, Chuck Berry's son and many more, including June Juanico, Elvis's first serious girlfriend.
Other contributors include Tom Jones, Jamie Callum, Paul McCartney, Cliff Richard, Joe Brown, Marty Wilde, Green Day, Minnie Driver, Jack White of The White Stripes, The Mavericks, Jools Holland, Hank Marvin, Fontella Bass, John Waters and more.
Elvis's pelvis was just the start. Who had to change the lyrics to their biggest hit because the originals were too obscene? Who married their 13-year-old cousin? Who used lard to get their hair just right? And what happened on the day the music died?
TUE 00:00 Horizon (b00kk4bz)
2008-2009
How Violent Are You?
What makes ordinary people commit extreme acts of violence?
In a thought-provoking and disturbing journey, Michael Portillo investigates one of the darker sides of human nature. He discovers what it is like to inflict pain and is driven to the edge of violence himself in an extreme sleep deprivation study.
He meets men for whom violence has become an addiction and ultimately discovers that each of us could be inherently more violent than we think, and watches a replication of one of the most controversial studies in history, the Milgram study. Will study participants be willing to administer a seemingly lethal electric shock to someone they think is an innocent bystander?
TUE 01:00 The Old Grey Whistle Test (b0074t8q)
California Comes to the Whistle Test
A compilation of BBC performances by artists who lived and worked in California in the 1970s. Featuring Jackson Browne, Little Feat, Ry Cooder, Judee Sill, Bonnie Raitt and a rare duet between James Taylor and Carly Simon.
TUE 02:00 Poet on the Frontline (b050d5t8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Sunday]
TUE 03:00 Hidden Killers (b050d700)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 21 JANUARY 2015
WED 19:00 World News Today (b04yqzqk)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 World War I at Home (b045gjnp)
The Spies Who Loved Folkestone
Writer Anthony Horowitz learns how Folkestone became a hotbed of espionage and discovers the men, women and children who risked their lives operating as spooks during the First World War.
WED 20:00 Death Comes to Pemberley (b03nhx9b)
Episode 3
The trial draws to a close and Wickham's fate looks sealed, until a last-minute turn of events back at Pemberley reveals a surprising suspect much closer to home. It becomes a race against time to prove the real culprit and save an innocent man from death by hanging.
WED 21:00 The Secret Horse: Quest for the True Appaloosa (b04z21cc)
Documentary in which a 69-year-old horsewoman from New Zealand sets off on an extraordinary journey to find the truth about the origins of the rare Appaloosa spotted horse. Back in the saddle for the first time in 12 years, she crosses one of the world's highest mountain ranges in search of a lost valley, where she hopes to discover whether the experts have been wrong all along and that the true source of the North American Appaloosa horse is Asia and not Europe, as the history books would have us believe.
An inspirational adventure story inspired by a lifelong passion for horses.
WED 22:00 Voyager: To the Final Frontier (b01nj48v)
This is the story of the most extraordinary journey in human exploration, the Voyager space mission. In 1977 two unmanned spacecraft were launched by NASA, heading for distant worlds. It would be the first time any man-made object would ever visit the farthest planets of the solar system - Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus. On the way the Voyagers would be bombarded by space dust, fried by radiation and discover many of the remarkable wonders of the solar system.
Now, at the end of 2012, 35 years and 11 billion miles later, they are leaving the area of the sun's influence. As they journey out into the galaxy beyond they carry a message from Earth, a golden record bolted to the side of each craft describing our civilisation in case of discovery by another. This is the definitive account of the most intrepid explorers in Earth's history.
WED 23:00 The Who: The Making of Tommy (b03f7z78)
1968 was a time of soul-searching for the Who - with three badly performing singles behind them, they needed a big new idea to put them back at the top and, crucially, to hold them together as a band. Inspired by Indian spiritual master Meher Baba, Pete Townshend created the character of Tommy, the 'deaf, dumb and blind boy'. Broke and fragmenting when they started recording, the album went on to sell over 20 million copies. In this film, the Who speak for the first time about the making of the iconic album and how its success changed their lives.
WED 00:00 Horizon (b00jgtl2)
2008-2009
Why Can't We Predict Earthquakes?
Last century, earthquakes killed over one million, and it is predicted that this century might see ten times as many deaths. Yet when an earthquake strikes, it always takes people by surprise.
So why hasn't science worked out how to predict when and where the next big quake is going to happen? This is the story of the men and women who chase earthquakes and try to understand this mysterious force of nature.
Journeying to China's Sichuan Province, which still lies devastated by the earthquake that struck in May 2008, as well as the notorious San Andreas fault in California, Horizon asks why science has so far fallen short of answering this fundamental question.
WED 01:00 Tales from the Royal Bedchamber (b0386lxs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Sunday]
WED 02:00 Queen Victoria's Letters: A Monarch Unveiled (b04pl2mn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Sunday]
WED 03:00 The Secret Horse: Quest for the True Appaloosa (b04z21cc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 22 JANUARY 2015
THU 19:00 World News Today (b04yqzqq)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b0505yqc)
David 'Kid' Jensen presents chart hits of the week, with performances by the Nolan Sisters, UFO, the Skids, Joe Jackson, Dollar, ABBA, Sheila B and Pink Floyd, and a dance sequence by Legs & Co.
THU 20:00 Horizon (b00hr6bk)
2008-2009
Can We Make a Star on Earth?
Professor Brian Cox takes a global journey in search of the energy source of the future. Called nuclear fusion, it is the process that fuels the sun and every other star in the universe. Yet despite over five decades of effort, scientists have been unable to get even a single watt of fusion electricity onto the grid.
Brian returns to Horizon to find out why. Granted extraordinary access to the biggest and most ambitious fusion experiments on the planet, Brian travels to the USA to see a high-security fusion bomb-testing facility in action and is given a tour of the world's most powerful laser. In South Korea, he clambers inside the reaction chamber of K-Star, the world's first supercooled, superconducting fusion reactor, where the fate of future fusion research will be decided.
THU 21:00 Headhunters (b073jt45)
Thriller in which a successful business headhunter who is secretly funding his lavish lifestyle with a sideline in art theft learns that one of his contacts has a valuable painting and resolves to steal it, little realising the deadly world of trouble he is entering.
In Norwegian with English subtitles.
THU 22:35 Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession (b00s96gn)
Mapping the World
In the last of a three-part series about the extraordinary stories behind maps, Professor Jerry Brotton uncovers how maps are snapshots of a moment in history and offer visions of distant lands, tempting explorers to plunder and conquer.
However, adventurers first had to tackle the great challenge of mapping the globe onto a flat surface. There is no perfect solution, but the father of geography, Claudius Ptolemy, had some clever ideas.
Explorers like Christopher Columbus sailed into the unknown in search of riches and discovered a whole new continent that would become the most powerful on earth, while Amerigo Vespucci gave it his name.
Sir Walter Raleigh's treasure map of El Dorado in South America ultimately lost him his head. But the myth of El Dorado lived on, sending hundreds of men to their death in fruitless attempts to find the golden city.
As navigation became easier, maps enabled nations and enterprises like the Dutch East India Company to plunder far-off territories for spices, natural resources and gold. Even today, a project to map the North Pole is the flashpoint for the so-called 'Cold Rush' - the dash to exploit oil, gas and mineral reserves as the Arctic ice melts.
THU 23:35 Hidden Killers (b050d700)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
THU 00:35 Horizon (b00hr6bk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THU 01:35 Top of the Pops (b0505yqc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 02:15 Sounds of the Sixties (b0074qbf)
Original Series
1964-66: The Beat Room
Things get cool and serious in the archive rock show as it highlights the BBC's cutting-edge pop programme The Beat Room amongst others, with great performances from John Lee Hooker, The Pretty Things and Tom Jones.
THU 02:45 Constable: A Country Rebel (b04gv42q)
The Haywain by John Constable is such a comfortingly familiar image of rural Britain that it is difficult to believe it was ever regarded as a revolutionary painting, but in this film, made in conjunction with a landmark exhibition at the V&A, Alastair Sooke discovers that Constable was painting in a way that was completely new and groundbreaking at the time.
Through experimentation and innovation he managed to make a sublime art from humble things and, though he struggled in his own country during his lifetime, his genius was surprisingly widely admired in France.
FRIDAY 23 JANUARY 2015
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b04yqzqz)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Concerto at the BBC Proms (b01k763t)
Mozart Clarinet
Another chance to hear a live performance from the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, considered by some to be his finest work, recorded at the BBC Proms in 2006.
Gifted English clarinet soloist Julian Bliss, at the time only 17 years old, performs with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Jirà Behlohlávek.
FRI 20:00 The Joy of Mozart (b04yrj6n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Sunday]
FRI 21:00 Sound of Song (b04z23vl)
Reeling and Rocking
Musician Neil Brand explores the magical elements that come together to create great songs by recreating some of the most memorable and innovative recording sessions in music history - from Elvis's slapback echo in Memphis and The Beatles' tape loops at Abbey Road to Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and The Beach Boys' pop symphonies.
He shows that all this was made possible by the discovery of magnetic tape by an American soldier in the ruins of WWII Germany, the invention that, more than any other, drove the emergence of the music studio as a compositional tool and the rise of the producer as a new creative force shaping the sound of song.
FRI 22:00 Elvis: That's Alright Mama 60 Years On (b04c3l7g)
Actor and musician Sam Palladio hosts a musical tribute to Elvis Presley, 60 years to the day from when he recorded his first single, That's All Right, at Sun Studio in Memphis on 5 July 1954. Sam traces Elvis's story from childhood poverty in Mississippi, where he had to make do with a broom for a guitar, to the moment when, by accident, he ended up recording the song that changed the history of popular music. There are performances of the finest Elvis tracks from the likes of soul legend Candi Staton, LA duo The Pierces and country star Laura Bell Bundy.
FRI 23:00 The Beatles' Please Please Me: Remaking a Classic (b01qnrb8)
In 2013, on the 50th anniversary of the famous 12-hour session at Abbey Road which resulted in the Beatles' iconic album Please Please Me, leading artists such as Stereophonics, Graham Coxon, Gabrielle Aplin, Joss Stone, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, Paul Carrack, Mick Hucknall and I Am Kloot attempted to record the same songs, in the same timescale, in the same studio.
The results are captured in this programme, presented by Stuart Maconie.
Amongst those paying their own tribute to the album's success are Burt Bacharach and Guy Chambers, as well as people lucky enough to have been there 50 years ago telling the remarkable story of what happened that day, including engineer Richard Langham and the Beatles' press officer Tony Barrow.
FRI 00:00 Motown at the BBC (b00hq4qr)
To mark the 50-year anniversary of Motown in 2009, a compilation of some of the iconic record label's greatest names filmed live in the BBC studios. Visitors from Hitsville USA over the years have included Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops and The Jackson 5.
FRI 01:00 Sound of Song (b04z23vl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 02:00 Elvis: That's Alright Mama 60 Years On (b04c3l7g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
FRI 03:00 The Beatles' Please Please Me: Remaking a Classic (b01qnrb8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 today]
LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)
... Sings the Great American Songbook
01:00 SUN (b00rs3w4)
BBC Four Sessions
23:00 SUN (b00ry9mr)
Blondie's New York... and the Making of Parallel Lines
22:50 SAT (b04fmgkb)
Blondie's New York... and the Making of Parallel Lines
03:05 SAT (b04fmgkb)
Blues at the BBC
02:00 SUN (b00k36m5)
British Gardens in Time
21:00 MON (b041m5bq)
British Gardens in Time
02:45 MON (b041m5bq)
Concerto at the BBC Proms
19:30 FRI (b01k763t)
Constable: A Country Rebel
02:45 THU (b04gv42q)
Death Comes to Pemberley
20:00 WED (b03nhx9b)
Elvis: That's Alright Mama 60 Years On
22:00 FRI (b04c3l7g)
Elvis: That's Alright Mama 60 Years On
02:00 FRI (b04c3l7g)
Everyday Miracles: The Genius of Sofas, Stockings and Scanners
20:00 SAT (b04fmg34)
Glastonbury
23:40 SAT (b047zjqt)
Good Morning Karachi
23:00 MON (b039y4x7)
Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls
20:00 TUE (b01jmt5t)
Headhunters
21:00 THU (b073jt45)
Hidden Histories: Britain's Oldest Family Businesses
20:00 MON (b03slwfr)
Hidden Killers
21:00 TUE (b050d700)
Hidden Killers
03:00 TUE (b050d700)
Hidden Killers
23:35 THU (b050d700)
Horizon
00:20 MON (b01b45zh)
Horizon
00:00 TUE (b00kk4bz)
Horizon
00:00 WED (b00jgtl2)
Horizon
20:00 THU (b00hr6bk)
Horizon
00:35 THU (b00hr6bk)
Kings of Rock and Roll
23:00 TUE (b007c95q)
Lost Land of the Volcano
19:00 SAT (b00mwcqx)
Lost Land of the Volcano
02:05 SAT (b00mwcqx)
Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession
22:35 THU (b00s96gn)
Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells
02:20 MON (b00g8h9q)
Motown at the BBC
00:00 FRI (b00hq4qr)
Poet on the Frontline
22:00 SUN (b050d5t8)
Poet on the Frontline
02:00 TUE (b050d5t8)
Queen Victoria's Letters: A Monarch Unveiled
20:00 SUN (b04pl2mn)
Queen Victoria's Letters: A Monarch Unveiled
02:00 WED (b04pl2mn)
Smiley's People
22:00 TUE (b0079sbp)
Sound of Song
00:00 SUN (b04y4qpt)
Sound of Song
21:00 FRI (b04z23vl)
Sound of Song
01:00 FRI (b04z23vl)
Sounds of the Sixties
02:15 THU (b0074qbf)
Spiral
21:00 SAT (b0505y38)
Spiral
21:55 SAT (b050gs08)
Synth Britannia
00:35 SAT (b00n93c4)
Tales from the Royal Bedchamber
19:00 SUN (b0386lxs)
Tales from the Royal Bedchamber
01:00 WED (b0386lxs)
The Beatles' Please Please Me: Remaking a Classic
23:00 FRI (b01qnrb8)
The Beatles' Please Please Me: Remaking a Classic
03:00 FRI (b01qnrb8)
The Inca: Masters of the Clouds
22:00 MON (b04y4q35)
The Joy of Mozart
21:00 SUN (b04yrj6n)
The Joy of Mozart
03:00 SUN (b04yrj6n)
The Joy of Mozart
20:00 FRI (b04yrj6n)
The Old Grey Whistle Test
01:00 TUE (b0074t8q)
The Secret Horse: Quest for the True Appaloosa
21:00 WED (b04z21cc)
The Secret Horse: Quest for the True Appaloosa
03:00 WED (b04z21cc)
The Who: The Making of Tommy
23:00 WED (b03f7z78)
Top of the Pops
19:30 THU (b0505yqc)
Top of the Pops
01:35 THU (b0505yqc)
Tubular Bells: The Mike Oldfield Story
01:20 MON (b03cw8g0)
Voyager: To the Final Frontier
22:00 WED (b01nj48v)
World News Today
19:00 MON (b04yqzq7)
World News Today
19:00 TUE (b04yqzqd)
World News Today
19:00 WED (b04yqzqk)
World News Today
19:00 THU (b04yqzqq)
World News Today
19:00 FRI (b04yqzqz)
World War I at Home
19:30 MON (b045gjnt)
World War I at Home
19:30 TUE (b045gjf6)
World War I at Home
19:30 WED (b045gjnp)