American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.
In this series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.
Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.
In this 30-minute challenge, Bob Ross captures the beauty of the beach, as the sun goes down, in a seascape painted in gold, purple and orange.
In times of crisis, people often think that art and culture are luxuries. However, in this episode of Museums in Quarantine, Dr James Fox argues, in difficult times such as these, that we need art more than ever. Taking the viewer on a personal tour of some of the most profound artworks from the Tate Britain’s collection, from a self-portrait by 18th-century artist William Hogarth through to the gallery’s 21st-century installations, Dr Fox shows how art has a unique ability both to depict humanity’s suffering and offer us consolation.
Guiding us through the silent galleries of the temporarily closed Tate Britain, Dr Fox argues that great artists’ renderings of war and disaster remind us that we are not alone. Countless others have also lived through, and triumphed over, adversity.
The paintings, by some of Britain’s foremost landscape artists, present a bucolic vision of Britain – one that is deeply reassuring. And art, of course, also allows us a means of creating other worlds in our imagination and an escape from the confines of our own home.
Ultimately, this uplifting film asserts that art has the power to bring us hope and offer us a glimmer of light in the darkness.
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.
Wood's unique portrait moves on to 1066 when the Normans build a castle in Kibworth. He reveals how occupation affected the villagers from the gallows to the alehouse, and shows the medieval open fields in action in the only place where they still survive today.
With the help of the residents, he charts events in the village leading to the people's involvement in the Civil War of Simon de Montfort. Intertwining the local and national narratives, this is a moving and informative picture of one local community through time.
Timeshift digs into the archive to discover the unwritten rules that have governed the way we drink in Britain.
In the pubs and working men's clubs of the 40s and 50s there were strict customs governing who stood where. To be invited to sup at the bar was a rite of passage for many young men, and it took years for women to be accepted into these bastions of masculinity. As the country prospered and foreign travel became widely available, so new drinking habits were introduced as we discovered wine and, even more exotically, cocktails.
People began to drink at home as well as at work, where journalists typified a tradition of the liquid lunch. Advertising played its part as lager was first sold as a woman's drink and then the drink of choice for young men with a bit of disposable income. The rules changed and changed again, but they were always there - unwritten and unspoken, yet underwriting our complicated relationship with drinking.
Archaeologist Richard Miles shows how discoveries in the 18th and 19th centuries overturned ideas of when and where civilisation began as empires competed to literally 'own' the past.
With sumptuous palaces, exquisite artworks and stunning architecture, every great city offers a dizzying multitude of artistic highlights. In this series, art historians Dr Janina Ramirez and Alastair Sooke take us on three cultural citybreaks, hunting for off-the-beaten-track artistic treats - and finding new ways of enjoying some very famous sights.
In this second episode, Janina Ramirez and Alastair are on a mission to get to know one of the most popular cities in the world through its art and architecture. Although Barcelona is famous for its exuberant modernista buildings, the Gothic Quarter and artistic superstars such as Picasso, Janina and Alastair are determined to discover some less well-known cultural treats. Escaping the crowds on the Ramblas, they seek out the designs of an engineer who arguably put more of a stamp on the city than its star architect, Antoni Gaudi. Alastair marvels at the Romanesque frescoes that inspired a young Miro, while Janina discovers a surprising collection of vintage fans in the Mares, one of the city's most remarkable but rarely visited museums.
With a behind-the-scenes visit to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, a session of impromptu Catalan dance and Alastair adding the finishing touches to some Barcelona street art, it is a fast-paced and colourful tour of the city's art and artists, revealing how Barcelona developed its distinctive cultural identity and how the long-running fight for independence has shaped the artistic life of the city.
As part of BBC Radio 2's Festival in a Day in London's Hyde Park, soul and Motown legend Smokey Robinson takes to the stage at the end of a lovely summer's day to close proceedings with a rousing headline set. Along with a little help from the crowd, Smokey and band perform a selection of classics from his impressive repertoire including You've Really Got a Hold on Me, The Tears of a Clown, I Second That Emotion and The Tracks of My Tears.
An Engineer Imagines tells the story of Peter Rice, widely regarded as the most distinguished structural engineer of the late 20th century, and his massive impact on modern architecture. Without his innovations in material and design, and his collaboration with the leading architects of his time, some of the most recognisable architectural buildings in the world would not have been possible. These buildings include the Sydney Opera House, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Lloyds of London building.
The documentary traces Rice's extraordinary work and short life, from his native Dundalk through Belfast, London, Sydney and Paris, to his untimely death in 1992, and explores his lasting legacy, which can be seen today, not only in Europe and beyond, but also in his native Ireland.
THURSDAY 30 APRIL 2020
THU 19:00 The Joy of Painting (m000hqq7)
Series 1
Triple View
American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.
In this series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.
Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.
In this programme, Bob Ross shows his viewers how to prepare their canvasses, guiding them step by step, as he paints a mountain view through a window, complete with cosy cabin and meadow.
THU 19:30 Museums in Quarantine (m000hqq9)
Series 1
British Museum
Art historian Dr Janina Ramirez has lovingly paced the galleries of the British Museum since she was a child. Now, as the museum’s incomparable collections lie shuttered during the lockdown, she has been given permission to curate a highly personal selection of some of her favourites amongst its many treasures and to guide us on her very own virtual tour of its silent, empty galleries.
For Ramirez, no other collection in the world makes it possible to chart the highs and lows of humans across the world, and across time, in quite the same way. Her tour takes her across many different cultures and periods of history, alighting on objects as varied as a decorated Aztec skull, ancient Egyptian cat mummies and an 18th-century tea set. As she says, ‘Whether they provide a glimpse into enduring notions of love, sex and spirituality or catalogue moments of change, power and achievement, the artefacts in this one building show us the eternal and the ephemeral.’
The film is a personal reflection on the solace, wisdom and sense of perspective that the British Museum’s global collections can bring us in a time of crisis. ‘We all matter,’ Ramirez concludes, ‘we all stitch ourselves, even in the smallest way, onto the tapestry of existence. These artefacts show us that each of us leaves our footprints in the sands of time.'
THU 20:00 Great Expectations (2012) (b039f0bs)
As a boy, Pip is made a plaything for haughty young Estella by eccentric Miss Haversham. When circumstances enable Pip to become a gentleman, he hopes to be able to woo wealthy Estella, but both are pawns in a larger game.
Sumptuous and star-studded adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic, from BBC Films.
THU 22:00 Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema (b0bf7wrl)
Series 1
Science Fiction
Mark Kermode continues his fresh and very personal look at the art of cinema by examining the techniques and conventions behind classic film genres, uncovering the ingredients that keep audiences coming back for more.
This time Mark explores the most visionary of all genres - science fiction, and shows how film-makers have risen to the challenge of making the unbelievable believable. Always at the forefront of cinema technology, science fiction films have used cutting-edge visual effects to transport us to other worlds or into the far future. But as Mark shows, it's not just about the effects. Films as diverse as 2001, the Back to the Future trilogy and Blade Runner have used product placement and commercial brand references to make their future worlds seem more credible. The recent hit Arrival proved that the art of film editing can play with our sense of past and future as well as any time machine. Meanwhile, films such as Silent Running and WALL-E have drawn on silent era acting techniques to help robot characters convey emotion. And District 9 reached back to Orson Welles by using news reporting techniques to render an alien visitation credible.
Mark argues that for all their spectacle, science fiction films ultimately derive their power from being about us. They take us to other worlds and eras, and introduce us to alien and artificial beings, in order to help us better understand our own humanity.
THU 23:00 Horizon (b08c3v47)
2017
Hair Care Secrets
The Horizon team have gathered together a team of scientists and doctors to investigate the incredible, natural material that is growing out of our heads - our hair. With access to the research laboratories of some of the world's leading hair care companies, including L'Oreal and ghd, the team explore the cutting-edge research and technology designed to push the boundaries of hair and hair care.
Each one of us has a unique head of hair - an average of 150,000 individual hair strands growing approximately one centimetre every month. Over your lifetime, that is over 800 miles. The time and effort we put into styling, sculpting and maintaining this precious material has created a global hair care market worth a staggering £60 billion pounds. With such high stakes, it is inevitable that when developing hair-care products, science and business operate hand in hand. The team reveal how this industry science compares to the rigorous academic standards that they are used to.
These investigations also reveal why we care so much about our hair, and whether or not it is worth splashing out on expensive shampoos. They uncover the magic ingredients found in conditioners and lay bare the secrets of the shiny, glossy hair seen in the adverts.
THU 00:00 Novels That Shaped Our World (m000bhgt)
Series 1
The Empire Writes Back
Robinson Crusoe, the hero of the first ever novel published in English, in 1719, was a slave trader. Right from its inception, as this programme investigates, the English novel was closely bound up with the dynamics of colonialism and marched along, in lock step, to the British Empire’s rise, decline and fall. Slavery, which predated the empire, but was an inescapable part of it, is the subject of two famous American novels more than a century apart - Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The legacy of slavery is also at the heart of one of the most famous novels of all, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and its 'prequel', written a century later - Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea.
The British Empire was often taken as a given – even God-given - and widely celebrated. In the novels of some writers, though, it was questioned more deeply – such as Rudyard Kipling’s famous espionage yarn Kim. Fifty years later, a very different type of spy, James Bond, fought to keep the empire going when it had in truth already gone. By then a new voice had emerged - that of writers from the newly independent former British colonies, like Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe. At the same time, immigrants from the Caribbean were coming to the UK in search of a warm welcome and a better life. Their mixed experiences began to be told in the Trinidadian Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners, published in 1956. The twin evils of racism and slavery come full circle in recent works like the former Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman’s series Noughts and Crosses and the 2016 Man Booker prize winner The Sellout, a savage comedy by Paul Beatty – in which a present-day African-American Los Angeleno keeps a slave.
THU 01:00 Arena (b0613d0c)
Nicolas Roeg - It's About Time
The first major profile of the great British film director Nicolas Roeg, examining his very personal vision of cinema as in such films as Don't Look Now, Performance, Walkabout and The Man Who Fell to Earth. Roeg reflects on his career, which began as a leading cinematographer, and on the themes that have obsessed him, such as our perception of time and the difficulty of human relationships. With contributions from key collaborators, including Julie Christie, Jenny Agutter and Theresa Russell, and directors he has inspired such as Danny Boyle, Mike Figgis, Bernard Rose and Ben Wheatley.
THU 02:00 The Joy of Painting (m000hqq7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
THU 02:30 Museums in Quarantine (m000hqq9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 03:00 Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema (b0bf7wrl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
FRIDAY 01 MAY 2020
FRI 19:00 Virtuoso Violinists at the BBC (b072x1qh)
Violinist Nicola Benedetti explores 60 years of BBC archive to celebrate the world of the violin and its most outstanding performers. From Nathan Milstein, Mischa Elman and Isaac Stern to Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman and Nigel Kennedy, Nicola gives us a violinist's perspective on what makes a great performance in a tradition which stretches back to the 19th-century virtuoso Paganini. Filmed at the Royal Academy of Music Museum, London.
FRI 20:00 Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein (b097ts08)
Series 1
Dictatorship
Suzy Klein reaches the 1930s, when the totalitarian dictators sought to use and abuse music for ideological ends. She looks at the lives of Richard Strauss, Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, who produced some of the 20th-century's best-loved music whilst navigating the precarious tightrope of working for perhaps the most terrifying music lovers ever - Hitler and Stalin.
The political message of the classic musical fairytale Peter and the Wolf is revealed as well as the secret code hidden in Shostakovich's quartets and Strauss's deeply personal reasons for trying to please the Nazis.
Suzy also uncovers why Hitler adored Wagner but banned Mendelssohn's Wedding March, how Stalin used music to subtly infiltrate minds and why Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, a Nazi favourite, appeals to our most primitive senses.
Suzy also raises some intriguing questions: can we pin meaning onto music? What are the moral responsibilities of artists? And did the violence and tyranny of those regimes leave an indelible stain on the music they produced?
The stories are brought to life by performances from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and its chorus - demonstrating Suzy's argument that music's incredible power to bypass our brains and reach for our hearts makes it a potent and dangerous force.
FRI 21:00 Top of the Pops (m000hqmy)
Steve Wright and Jenny Powell present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 3 August 1989 and featuring Kylie Minogue, Paul McCartney and Gun.
FRI 21:30 The Shadows at Sixty (m000hqn0)
A look back at the incredible success of The Shadows as they celebrate their sixtieth anniversary. Starting from where they began as The Drifters to then becoming the backing band for Cliff Richard and enjoying huge success in their own right, the programme celebrates The Shadows’ achievements across a time of constant change within the social, cultural and musical landscape.
The Shadows were at the forefront of the UK beat boom generation and the first backing group to emerge as big stars in their own right. Using unseen archive, personal testimony and interviews with the band, along with those they influenced, including Brian May, David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, The Shadows at Sixty is not just a trip down memory lane, but an in-depth, often emotional story of a group’s journey through six decades.
FRI 22:30 Great Guitar Riffs at the BBC (b049mtxy)
Compilation of BBC performances featuring some of the best axe men and women in rock 'n' roll, from Hendrix to The Kinks, Cream to AC/DC, The Smiths to Rage Against the Machine and Radiohead to Foo Fighters. Whether it is The Shadows playing FBI on Crackerjack, Jeff Beck with The Yardbirds, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream's Sunshine of Your Love from their final gig, Pixies on the Late Show, AC/DC on Top of the Pops or Fools Gold from The Stone Roses, this compilation is a celebration of rock 'n' roll guitar complete with riffs, fingerstylin', wah-wah pedals and Marshall amps.
FRI 23:30 Radio 2 Live (b07ws9xc)
Hyde Park Headliners
Elton John Live at Hyde Park
Sir Elton John, one of the most highly acclaimed and successful solo artists of all time, headlines Radio 2's Festival in a Day on London's Hyde Park stage, performing a string of hits to a 50,000-strong crowd.
With a career spanning over five decades, Sir Elton has sold more than 250 million records worldwide, holds the record for the biggest-selling single of all time and plays 107 shows a year. But this is all about London's Hyde Park - the multiple Grammy-winning legend and flamboyant superstar performs classics old and new from his back catalogue to his latest album Wonderful Crazy Night, his 33rd studio feat that has seen him reunite some vital band members for the first time in nearly a decade along with collaborating with his long-standing lyricist Bernie Taupin.
It's an incredible and unforgettable evening of songs from the mighty powerhouse rock legend that is Sir Elton John.
FRI 00:30 The People's History of Pop (b077rchk)
The Birth of the Fan
Twiggy celebrates the 60s, meeting skiffle musicians, fans of The Shadows, Liverpudlians who frequented the Cavern Club at the height of Merseybeat, Beatles devotees, Ready Steady Go! dancers, mods, lovers of ska, bluebeat and Millie Small, and fans of The Rolling Stones.
Unearthed pop treasures include a recording of John Lennon's first ever recorded performance with his band The Quarrymen.
FRI 01:30 The Shadows at Sixty (m000hqn0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:30 today]
FRI 02:30 Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein (b097ts08)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)
An Art Lovers' Guide
23:00 WED (b08ps5rd)
Archaeology: A Secret History
22:00 WED (p0109k28)
Arena
01:00 THU (b0613d0c)
Bob Monkhouse: The Last Stand
22:00 TUE (b086tw3q)
Britain's Outlaws: Highwaymen, Pirates and Rogues
22:35 MON (b06qskdx)
Canal Boat Diaries
19:30 SUN (m000bjyw)
Coast
20:00 SAT (b082sh1r)
Coast
03:00 SAT (b082sh1r)
Disco at the BBC
22:30 SAT (b01cqt74)
Disco at the BBC
02:00 SAT (b01cqt74)
Expedition Volcano
21:00 TUE (b09hv9g1)
Get Animated! BBC Introducing Arts
22:55 SUN (m000hqnp)
Great Expectations (2012)
20:00 THU (b039f0bs)
Great Guitar Riffs at the BBC
22:30 FRI (b049mtxy)
Horizon
23:00 THU (b08c3v47)
King Lear
21:00 SUN (b0b57d0w)
Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema
22:00 THU (b0bf7wrl)
Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema
03:00 THU (b0bf7wrl)
Meet the Romans with Mary Beard
20:00 MON (b01gxqgg)
Michael Wood's Story of England
20:00 WED (b00tzmsd)
Museums in Quarantine
19:30 MON (m000hqml)
Museums in Quarantine
01:35 MON (m000hqml)
Museums in Quarantine
19:30 TUE (m000hqpj)
Museums in Quarantine
02:00 TUE (m000hqpj)
Museums in Quarantine
19:30 WED (m000hqmw)
Museums in Quarantine
02:30 WED (m000hqmw)
Museums in Quarantine
19:30 THU (m000hqq9)
Museums in Quarantine
02:30 THU (m000hqq9)
Novels That Shaped Our World
00:00 THU (m000bhgt)
Pain, Pus and Poison: The Search for Modern Medicines
20:00 TUE (b03ccs7k)
Pain, Pus and Poison: The Search for Modern Medicines
02:30 TUE (b03ccs7k)
Peter Rice: An Engineer Imagines
01:00 WED (m0007zg7)
Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village
19:00 SUN (b0bsrqky)
Radio 2 Live
00:00 WED (b03ycqgg)
Radio 2 Live
23:30 FRI (b07ws9xc)
Return to Larkinland
23:35 MON (b06hhlyl)
Secrets of British Animation
23:55 SUN (b0btynjg)
Talking Comedy
23:00 TUE (b05qt2b7)
The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers
00:30 TUE (b09j2vvp)
The Brontes at the BBC
00:55 SUN (b075dwrd)
The Joy of Painting
19:00 MON (m000hqmj)
The Joy of Painting
01:05 MON (m000hqmj)
The Joy of Painting
19:00 TUE (m000hqpg)
The Joy of Painting
01:30 TUE (m000hqpg)
The Joy of Painting
19:00 WED (m000hqmt)
The Joy of Painting
02:00 WED (m000hqmt)
The Joy of Painting
19:00 THU (m000hqq7)
The Joy of Painting
02:00 THU (m000hqq7)
The People's History of Pop
00:30 FRI (b077rchk)
The Price of Everything
21:00 MON (m000hqmq)
The Price of Everything
02:05 MON (m000hqmq)
The Private Life of...
19:00 SAT (b00t4n5g)
The Renaissance Unchained
23:30 TUE (b071gsdv)
The Shadows at Sixty
21:30 FRI (m000hqn0)
The Shadows at Sixty
01:30 FRI (m000hqn0)
Through the Lens of Larkin
00:35 MON (b095zds8)
Timeshift
21:00 WED (b019c85h)
Timeshift
03:00 WED (b019c85h)
Top of the Pops
00:30 SAT (m000hjm1)
Top of the Pops
21:00 FRI (m000hqmy)
Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein
20:00 FRI (b097ts08)
Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein
02:30 FRI (b097ts08)
Twin
21:00 SAT (m000hqn2)
Twin
21:45 SAT (m000hqn4)
Utopia: In Search of the Dream
01:55 SUN (b091gx74)
Virtuoso Violinists at the BBC
19:00 FRI (b072x1qh)
Vocal Giants and Beyond with Beverley Knight and James Morrison
01:00 SAT (b0brzps6)
What a Performance! Pioneers of Popular Entertainment
23:30 SAT (b06s5zw9)
Wild Arabia
20:00 SUN (b01r12zm)
Wild Arabia
02:55 SUN (b01r12zm)