Katty Kay in Washington and Christian Fraser in London report on the events that are shaping the world.
Explorer Paul Rose heads for Swaledale in the latest of his Yorkshire Dales adventures. Swaledale is the wildest of the Yorkshire Dales and Paul joins the farmers who look after rare upland hay meadows. Paul also visits Muker Show and enters the cake making contest using a pressure cooker he’s used on Everest.
He also goes underground to try and find rare industrial artefacts left behind by lead miners in the 19th century. Paul’s journey also includes a meeting with actor Peter Davison who played Tristan Farnon in the All Creatures Great and Small TV series.
In this landmark living history series, a late 1800s Victorian arts and crafts commune in the Welsh hills has been painstakingly brought back to life as a group of 21st-century crafters move in to experience the highs and lows of living and working together as a creative commune. Over their month-long stay they are set to renovate four of the key rooms in the house.
In the first episode Anita Rani is joined by internationally renowned potter Keith Brymer Jones and arts and crafts expert and dealer Patch Rogers, as the six crafters are faced with the challenge of breathing life back into the Victorian parlour. Using original Victorian tools and techniques, they create arts and crafts objects including a Sussex chair, CR Ashbee bowl and William Morris-inspired wallpaper - all from scratch and all in a week.
All the while, they are also eating, working and living within the philosophies first outlined by the likes of John Ruskin and William Morris. Will their 1890s communal life help them to better understand the depth and scale of the Arts and Crafts movement, both as a power for artistic and social change? Will the arts and crafts life make them better crafters and reconnect them creatively to what they love?
Therapist Rachel Nguyen tells the story of the Vietnamese Boat People who came to Britain in the 70s and 80s. British-born Rachel, whose parents fled post-war Vietnam, discovers how a new community came to exist in Britain when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher eventually agreed to take in 10,000 Vietnamese refugees.
Scattered around the country following a controversial ‘dispersal policy’, the new community became almost invisible – even to this day many in the UK might not realise Britain has a Vietnamese community.
Through meeting people who lived through these events and by accessing rare archive footage and government papers, Rachel learns more about the community she was brought up in and the country into which her parents and the other Boat People arrived. Whilst they faced huge difficulties, there was also kindness from local people. She goes on to explore how life in Britain has changed for Vietnamese people of her generation.
This three-part series argues that the Stuarts, more than any other, were Britain's defining royal family.
After Charles I's disastrous attempt to militarily impose political and religious uniformity throughout his kingdoms, both the Stuart dynasty and its three kingdoms fell into an abyss. Charles lost his head and his family fled into exile.
In this second episode, Dr Clare Jackson reveals how the unprecedented religious violence of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms shaped the very DNA of British political culture and how the trauma suffered shaped subsequent constitutional crises in the years to come.
Simon uncovers the truth about Spain's hero El Cid. He also investigates the horror of the Spanish Inquisition and in the process discovers an unsettling story about one of his own ancestors.
Alastair Sooke unpicks the reasons behind the dazzling revolution that gave birth to classical Greek art, asking how the Greeks got so good so quickly. He travels to the beautiful Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, and to the island of Mozia to see the astonishing charioteer found there in 1979, and marvels at the athletic bodies of the warriors dragged from the seabed - the Riace Bronzes.
It was a creative explosion that covered architecture, sculpting in marble, casting in bronze, even painting on vases. Perhaps the most powerful factor was also its greatest legacy - a fascination with the naked human body.
In the second episode of Soumik Datta’s musical travels around India, he goes in search of the country’s folk and religious music - the traditional music of ordinary people. In the southern Indian state of Kerala, home to some of the oldest religious music in India, he visits the Panchari Melam, a spectacular Hindu festival with extraordinary displays of massed drumming. And in Maharashtra, he discovers how the brass band tradition, with its origins in the military bands of the British Raj, is falling out of favour as the staple of Indian wedding processions. In Bengal he encounters Baul singers, part of a tradition of wandering musicians, mystic minstrels whose music is intended to to spread a message of spiritual enlightenment. And in the deserts of Rajasthan he discovers how the rich folk heritage of the region is drawing tourists from around the world and helping sustain communities. Throughout his journey, he marvels at how the music of ordinary people continues to play an important role in their lives and reflects the challenges facing communities across India as they adapt to a fast changing world.
THURSDAY 05 MARCH 2020
THU 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (m000fzm4)
Series 1
05/03/2020
Katty Kay in Washington and Christian Fraser in London report on the events that are shaping the world.
THU 19:30 The Yorkshire Dales (m0004c12)
Series 1
Wharfedale
Paul Rose’s Yorkshire Dales adventure takes him to Wharfedale. He meets the butchers in Ilkley whose Yorkshire produce is being sold all over the country. Paul also heads for Bolton Abbey and spends time with the Duke of Devonshire. He then takes time out with the Calendar Girls, who shot to fame after their nude calendar became a worldwide sensation two decades ago, and has a close encounter with bats that live along the River Wharfe. Finally, he meets the families from inner-city Bradford who are having their first Dales experience.
THU 20:00 The Real T Rex with Chris Packham (b09ksl99)
Chris Packham goes on an investigative journey into the mysteries of planet Earth's super predator - Tyrannosaurus rex. The latest groundbreaking palaeontological discoveries combined with studies of modern animals are redefining this iconic dinosaur. Tackling everything from the way he looked, moved, socialised - even down to his terrifying roar - Chris strips away Hollywood myths to uncover the amazing truth, and utilizing the latest CGI wizardry, he rebuilds the most authentic T rex ever seen from the bones up.
Chris's journey begins in the badlands of Montana, where he has the chance to touch a T rex fossil still emerging from the 65-million-year-old rocks. From here he travels to Berlin to visit Tristan, a T rex skeleton recently excavated from the badlands. These bare bones pose more questions and Chris decides his challenge is to rebuild Tristan with CGI, using the latest discoveries to fill in the gaps. He visits palaeontologist Greg Erikson in Alabama, who is exploring the power of T rex's jaws by comparing them to what we can gauge from modern alligators.
Chris learns that although T rex bore similarities to reptiles, his musculature shows him to be more like a bird. He then takes a prehistoric paddle in the rivers of Dino-State Park in Texas, where exposed dinosaur footprints form long trackways that are the passion of dino-paw expert Glen Kuban. His findings lead Chris to compare T rex with modern flightless birds in an effort to work out just how fast he could move. With the help of palaeontologist and biomechanics expert John Hutchinson, he discovers that the huge tail was not a drag but the source of T rex's locomotive power - but that there were limits which we learn when they put a virtual Tristan on a treadmill.
Chris visits Larry Witmer in Ohio, who has used CT scanners to look into a fossilized skull and find the precise shape of T rex's brain. From this, he has identified supersized sensory zones - proving that he is a great hunter - but also an inner ear that indicates he was designed to hear ultra-low frequency infrasounds. Taking this lead, Chris goes to a sound studio in Berlin with palaeontologist Julia Clarke to experiment with recreating the surprising true roar of T rex.
In order to add the final look to Tristan, Julia Clarke, who has scoured microscopic samples of dinosaur skin for evidence of coloration, helps Chris find a palette based on melanin, as seen in modern birds of prey. Just before Tristan is finished, Chris takes one more trip to Alberta, Canada, where he meets palaeontologist Phil Currie, who suggests on the evidence of a recent fossil find that T rex may have been social predators, living in prides like African lions. Finally, Chris sets Tristan free and in a scene Chris has imagined his whole life, he finally gets to go nose to nose with an animal he has longed to meet.
THU 21:00 The Day the Dinosaurs Died (b08r3xhf)
The Day the Dinosaurs Died investigates the greatest vanishing act in the history of our planet - the sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
Experts suspect that the dinosaurs were wiped out after a city-sized asteroid smashed into the Gulf of Mexico causing a huge crater. But until now, they haven't had any proof. In a world first, evolutionary biologist Ben Garrod joins a multimillion-pound drilling expedition into the exact spot the asteroid hit to get hard evidence of the link. The team overcomes huge obstacles as it attempts to drill 1,500 metres beneath sea level to pull up rock from the Chicxulub crater.
Meanwhile, paleopathologist Professor Alice Roberts travels the globe meeting top scientists and gaining exclusive access to a mass fossil graveyard in New Jersey - believed to date from the same time the asteroid hit. Alice also treks by horseback across the remote plains of Patagonia, to see if the effects of the asteroid impact could have wiped out dinosaurs across the world - almost immediately.
Alice and Ben's investigations reveal startling new evidence of a link between the asteroid and the death of the dinosaurs, presenting a vivid picture of the most dramatic 24 hours in our planet's history. They illustrate what happened in the seconds and hours after the impact, revealing that had the huge asteroid struck the Earth a moment earlier, or later, the destruction might not have been total for the dinosaurs. And if they still roamed the world, we humans may never have come to rule the planet.
THU 22:00 The Stuarts (b03vhjm8)
A Family at War
The final, dramatic act of the Stuart century saw the Stuarts fatally divided by religion: brother versus brother, and two daughters supporting the overthrow of their father. After Charles II's brother, the Catholic James VII and II, was deposed by protestant William of Orange in 1688, Britain became a constitutional monarchy.
However, the so-called 1688 'Glorious Revolution' came at a price, as Scotland lost her sovereignty and became part of Great Britain in 1707, whilst Ireland had been reduced from a kingdom to a colony. The politics of resentment has continued to trouble Ireland until the present day.
THU 23:00 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 00:00 How We Built Britain (b007t297)
The South: Dreams of Tomorrow
David Dimbleby completes his journey through Britain, discovering how the nation's history has shaped its buildings, in the south of England, exploring its dramatic transformation in the 20th century. Modern technology opened up new worlds to ordinary people, changing the way they worked, lived and played. He begins in Metroland, part of the suburban explosion of the 1920s and 1930s, with its 'Tudorbethan' houses and sumptuous cinemas like Moorish palaces, traces the arrival of the bold new modern style at a glorious public swimming pool on the south coast, and sees what effect the war had on what we built - from much-loved prefabs to high-rise blocks. And he visits the new temples of money in the City of London - breathtaking towers of steel and glass - and asks how many of them will still be there one hundred years from now.
THU 01:00 Rhythms of India (m0005pr5)
Series 1
Sounds of the City
Soumik Datta’s musical journey around India ends with a look at the popular music scene, discovering how Bollywood is changing, the impact of the internet and the rise of hip hop.
He starts in Mumbai, the home of Bollywood, where legendary screenwriter Javed Akhtar describes the roots of popular songs in Bollywood’s storytelling tradition. Soumik also meets, and performs with, famous Bollywood playback singer Kavita Krishnamurthy, the voice behind one of Soumik’s favourite Bollywood films, Mr India.
To discover how the internet is transforming the music industry, he visits the headquarters of T-Series in Delhi, India’s biggest music and film company whose internet channel is now the biggest on YouTube. And in Goa he meets Nucleya, an independent dance producer using WhatsApp to reach his huge young fanbase.
The film also explores how artists are finding different ways to mix western and Indian influences. At the NH7 festival in Pune, Soumik discovers how rock band Parvaaz, recently acclaimed by Rolling Stone as one of the most exciting bands in India, are making a name for themselves singing in their own regional language.
Back in Delhi, Soumik discovers how hip hop is shaking up the music industry. In a bedroom studio in west Delhi he meets the producers behind Mere Gully Mein, one of the anthems of Indian hip hop. A hugely influential celebration of life in the gullies or inner city backstreets, the song was the inspiration for a new Bollywood movie, Gully Boy. Soumik ends his journey at the launch of the movie in Mumbai, witnessing how the energy of India’s hip hop scene is now being embraced by the mainstream.
THU 02:00 Timeshift (b08dwxhn)
Series 16
Flights of Fancy: Pigeons and the British
Timeshift ventures inside places of sporting achievement, scientific endeavour and male obsession - the lofts of pigeon fanciers - to tell the story of a remarkable bird. As racer, messenger and even beauty pageant contestant, the humble pigeon has been a steadfast part of British life for centuries.
Pigeons have served in two world wars, flown over oceans and crossed barriers of age, class and race to take their place as man's best feathered friend. Meanwhile, pigeon fanciers have contrived to make them faster and more eye-catching, using backyard genetics to breed the perfect bird.
Popular affection for pigeons has nosedived in recent decades due to a growing distaste at what they leave behind, and legislation has seen them chased out of public spaces. But as this programme shows, dedicated British pigeon fanciers are determined to keep their pastime alive. So what does the future hold for the 21st-century pigeon?
THU 03:00 Age of the Image (m000fzm9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
FRIDAY 06 MARCH 2020
FRI 19:00 World News Today (m000fzlw)
The news programme for audiences who want more depth to their daily coverage. With a focus on Europe, Middle East and Africa.
FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (m000fzly)
Nicky Campbell and Sybil Ruscoe present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 20 April 1989 and featuring Transvision Vamp, Inner City, Holly Johnson, Metallica, Midnight Oil, The Cure, Simple Minds, Bangles and The Beatmasters with Merlin.
FRI 20:00 Cilla at the BBC (b067543w)
Much-mourned national treasure Cilla Black commenced her eminent career as a TV host in 1968 on the BBC. Her career as perhaps the nation's favourite female pop singer of the decade had already been established after landing her first Number 1 with Anyone Who Had a Heart, the biggest-selling hit by a female singer in the 1960s.
This tribute compilation celebrates the BBC's coverage of Cilla's 60s pop star years on programmes like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's Not Only...But Also, The Ken Dodd Show, Top of the Pops and The Royal Variety Performance, before selecting just some of the golden moments from the long-running self-titled series she hosted for the BBC between 1968 and 1976 including the Paul McCartney-penned theme song Step Inside Love and that 1973 famous duet with Marc Bolan on Life's A Gas.
FRI 21:00 Top of the Pops (m000fzm0)
Gary Davies presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 27 April 1989 and featuring London Boys, Natalie Cole, De La Soul, Fine Young Cannibals, Morrissey, The Beatmasters with Merlin, Yazz, Bangles and Poison.
FRI 21:30 Classic Albums (b08pg5tq)
Carly Simon: No Secrets
Carly Simon is one of the most influential singer-songwriters of her generation. The classic album that made her a global star was No Secrets, which included the enigmatic song You're So Vain. The album spent five weeks at number one in the US chart.
In this new interview Carly ties together her life and work on No Secrets - she is at her most honest, sometimes defiant, but with a wit and wisdom that comes from her rich and turbulent life. She tells of how the second single from the album, Right Thing to Do, was a refreshingly realistic love song, choosing to ignore her lover's problems. That lover was James Taylor; Carly wrote the lyrics on a plane after looking over at James and thinking 'there's nothing you can do to turn me away.'
The album's title track, We Have No Secrets, struck a chord with a generation trying to reconcile honesty in relationships with the emotional consequences that followed. Carly had a number of highly public affairs in the early 70s and her experience fed into the album's most famous song, the global hit You're So Vain. She performs the missing fourth verse on the piano, the first time she has ever sung it along with the melody.
Carly tells of how her producer made her do the vocal track on 'Vain' over and over, and how Mick Jagger ended up on backing vocals. The film has access to the master tapes and we hear Jagger's vocal track. Her producer reveals Carly was 'so turned on' after singing with Jagger that she recorded the whole vocal again - and that is the one on the album.
Finally, the film includes footage of Taylor Swift and Carly Simon performing You're So Vain together, and extracts from an interview where Swift herself talks about her love for the song.
FRI 22:30 Guitar, Drum and Bass (m00023xl)
Series 1
On Bass... Tina Weymouth!
Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club celebrates the extraordinary contribution of bass to popular music, tracing its progress from street-corner doo-wop and the overlooked ‘guy at the back’ in rock ‘n’ roll, via Paul McCartney, the anonymous James Jamerson and Carol Kaye - whose genius bass lines underpinned The Beatles, Motown and LA sound respectively - British jazzer Herbie Flowers’s immortal line in Walk on the Wild Side, the emergence of 70s funky bass stars Bootsy Collins and Chic’s Bernard Edwards, the driving lead bass of postpunk maverick Peter Hook in both Joy Division and New Order, through to the growth of bass culture in reggae, whose sound systems sparked whole new genres in drum and bass, grime and beyond.
With Bootsy Collins, Dizzee Rascal, Ray Parker Jr, Nile Rodgers, Peter Hook, Carol Kaye, Herbie Flowers, Valerie Simpson, The Marcels’ Fred Jonson, DJ Aphrodite and Gail Ann Dorsey.
FRI 23:30 6 Music Festival (m000fzm2)
2020
Brittany Howard
Alabama Shakes singer serves roots, soul and irresistible funk
FRI 00:45 Girl in a Band: Tales from the Rock 'n' Roll Front Line (b06l17fn)
All too often, every great female rock musician has to answer a predictable question - what is it like being a girl in a band?
For many, the sight of a girl shredding a guitar or laying into the drums is still a bit of a novelty. As soon as women started forming their own bands they were given labels - the rock chick, the girl band or one half of the rock 'n' roll couple.
Kate Mossman aims to look beyond the cliches of fallen angels, grunge babes and rock chicks as she gets the untold stories from rock's frontline to discover if it has always been different for the girl in a band.
FRI 01:45 Cilla at the BBC (b067543w)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
FRI 02:45 Classic Albums (b08pg5tq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:30 today]
LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)
6 Music Festival
23:30 FRI (m000fzm2)
A Very British History
21:00 WED (m000f4ym)
A Very British History
03:00 WED (m000f4ym)
After the Storm
22:50 SAT (m000g20s)
Age of the Image
21:00 MON (m000fzm9)
Age of the Image
03:00 THU (m000fzm9)
Alan Bennett's Diaries
23:00 SUN (b086kc2c)
Armada: 12 Days to Save England
23:00 TUE (b05xj5t4)
Art of France
23:15 MON (b08d7qlq)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 MON (m000fzph)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 TUE (m000fzsf)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 WED (m000fzls)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 THU (m000fzm4)
Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain with Simon Sebag Montefiore
23:00 WED (b06s5x0t)
Britain's Lost Masterpieces
21:00 SUN (b07yqgl3)
Britain's Lost Masterpieces
02:20 SUN (b07yqgl3)
Britain's Outlaws: Highwaymen, Pirates and Rogues
22:00 SUN (b06qskdx)
Cilla at the BBC
20:00 FRI (b067543w)
Cilla at the BBC
01:45 FRI (b067543w)
Classic Albums
21:30 FRI (b08pg5tq)
Classic Albums
02:45 FRI (b08pg5tq)
Clive James
22:00 SAT (m000fzl2)
Female Filmmakers: BBC Introducing Arts
23:00 THU (m000fzm7)
Francesco's Mediterranean Voyage
19:30 MON (b00csp2p)
Genius of the Ancient World
02:00 TUE (b065gv2m)
Girl in a Band: Tales from the Rock 'n' Roll Front Line
00:45 FRI (b06l17fn)
Guitar, Drum and Bass
22:30 FRI (m00023xl)
Hidden
21:00 SAT (m000fvhx)
How We Built Britain
00:00 THU (b007t297)
Inside the Medieval Mind
00:00 TUE (b00b413s)
King Alfred and the Anglo Saxons
20:00 TUE (b038rkw9)
Leonora Carrington: The Lost Surrealist
00:15 MON (b09j0lp9)
Natural World
19:00 SUN (b04g4qm5)
New Zealand: Earth's Mythical Islands
20:00 MON (b07n2hmt)
New Zealand: Earth's Mythical Islands
02:15 MON (b07n2hmt)
Rhythms of India
01:00 TUE (m00059b5)
Rhythms of India
01:00 WED (m0005hh7)
Rhythms of India
01:00 THU (m0005pr5)
Rick Stein's Long Weekends
19:00 SAT (b07cc9rt)
Rick Stein's Long Weekends
02:15 SAT (b07cc9rt)
Royal History’s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley
21:00 TUE (m000fzsh)
Royal History’s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley
03:00 TUE (m000fzsh)
Rude Britannia
01:15 MON (b00ssrsg)
South Pacific
20:00 SAT (b00ks63z)
South Pacific
01:15 SAT (b00ks63z)
Storyville
22:00 MON (m000fzpl)
The Day the Dinosaurs Died
21:00 THU (b08r3xhf)
The History Boys
00:00 SUN (b01shmjd)
The Real T Rex with Chris Packham
20:00 THU (b09ksl99)
The Science of Doctor Who
20:00 SUN (b03hybnv)
The Secret Life of Books
01:50 SUN (b07jhwf6)
The Stuarts
22:00 TUE (p01lknsc)
The Stuarts
22:00 WED (b03tv7f2)
The Stuarts
22:00 THU (b03vhjm8)
The Victorian House of Arts and Crafts
20:00 WED (b0by3gfy)
The Victorian House of Arts and Crafts
02:00 WED (b0by3gfy)
The Yorkshire Dales
19:30 TUE (m0003yk1)
The Yorkshire Dales
19:30 WED (m0004513)
The Yorkshire Dales
19:30 THU (m0004c12)
Timeshift
02:00 THU (b08dwxhn)
Top of the Pops
00:45 SAT (m000frf9)
Top of the Pops
19:30 FRI (m000fzly)
Top of the Pops
21:00 FRI (m000fzm0)
Treasures of Ancient Greece
00:00 WED (b05qqgrr)
World News Today
19:00 FRI (m000fzlw)