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.
Enjoy 30 minutes in the company of Bob Ross while he paints a majestic stand of evergreen trees overlooking sweet tiny flowers growing on a sloping knoll.
Ben Garrod finds out how the skeleton has allowed vertebrates to do the most remarkable thing of all - take to the air. He discovers why the humble pigeon is such an exceptional flier, uncovers bony secrets as to how the albatross makes mammoth migrations and finds out why some birds have dense bones. Finally, he reveals which surprising flier is his 'ultimate'.
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 fascinating tale reaches the catastrophic 14th century. Kibworth goes through the worst famine in European history, and then, as revealed in the astonishing village archive in Merton College Oxford, two thirds of the people die in the Black Death.
Helped by today's villagers - field walking and reading the historical texts - and by the local schoolchildren digging archaeological test pits, Wood follows stories of individual lives through these times, out of which the English idea of community and the English character begin to emerge.
Following on from his documentary Operation Mincemeat, based on his book of the same name, writer and presenter Ben MacIntyre returns to the small screen to bring to life his other bestselling book - Agent Zigzag.
As part of the Timewatch series, MacIntyre reveals the gripping true story of Britain's most extraordinary wartime double agent, Eddie Chapman. A notorious safe-breaker before the war, Chapman duped the Germans so successfully that he was awarded their highest decoration, the Iron Cross. He remains the only British citizen ever to win one.
Including remarkable and newly discovered footage from an interview Chapman gave three years before his death in 1997, the programme goes on the trail of one of Britain's most unlikely heroes - a story of adventure, love, intrigue and astonishing courage.
Archaeologist Richard Miles presents a series charting the history of the breakthroughs and watersheds in our long quest to understand our ancient past. He shows how 20th-century attention turned from civilisation and kings to the search for the common man against a background of science and competing political ideologies.
In the final episode of their entertaining series of cultural city breaks, Dr Janina Ramirez and Alastair Sooke explore St Petersburg through its dazzling art and architecture. They want to see how art has been used to enhance prestige and power in this city, ever since it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great.
Surrounded by vast palaces, gilded domes and imposing Soviet monuments, Janina and Alastair make a flying visit to their personal selection of imperial, communist and modern-day sights. They discover a city where art has always taken centre stage, from the intoxicating beauty of the state rooms at the Winter Palace to the bejewelled confections of Faberge, and from the dark tunnels where curators guarded precious artefacts during the deadly siege of the city in the Second World War to the apartment piled high with protest art painted by the outspoken 'dissident babushka'.
We are surrounded by types, the words on signs, buses, shops and documents which guide us through our lives. Two types in particular are regarded as the faces of Britain - Johnston and Gill Sans. Their story is told by typeface expert Mark Ovenden.
Dr James Fox journeys through Japan's mountainous forests, marvels at its zen gardens and admires centuries-old bonsai, to explore the connections between Japanese culture and the natural environment. Travelling around Japan's stunning island geography, he examines how the country's two great religions, Shinto and Buddhism, helped shape a creative response to nature often very different to the West. But he also considers modern Japan's changing relationship to the natural world and travels to Naoshima Art Island to see how contemporary artists are finding new ways to engage with nature.
THURSDAY 07 MAY 2020
THU 19:00 The Joy of Painting (m000hy1g)
Series 1
Hidden Stream
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.
Bob Ross creates another work of art in his series of 30-minute masterpieces, a warm summer idyll complete with a clear blue sky, shady trees and the perfect spot for a swim.
THU 19:30 Secrets of Bones (b03xsgwh)
Sensing the World
Ben Garrod delves into the surprising ways in which bone has evolved to help vertebrates sense the world around them. He reveals why predators like the wolf have eyes at the front of their skull whereas prey animals such as sheep usually have eye sockets on the sides of their heads. He finds out how the skull of the great grey owl has helped it develop such extraordinary hearing and uncovers the secret behind one bizarre creature's uniquely flexible nose.
THU 20:00 Pride and Prejudice (b0074r75)
Episode 1
Colin Firth stars as Mr Darcy in this iconic BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice by writer Andrew Davies. The arrival of the wealthy Mr Bingley causes great excitement within the Bennet family. One of her five daughters, Mrs Bennet feels, is sure to capture the heart of the wealthy young aristocrat. Meanwhile the wilful and opinionated Elizabeth Bennet matches wits with haughty Mr Darcy.
THU 21:00 Florence Nightingale (b00c0nqz)
Drama about the life of Florence Nightingale, based largely on her own words, which tells the true and unexpected story behind this most unusual woman - adored by the masses, hated by the few and credited by historians as the brilliant birth-mother of modern nursing.
Bringing to life the story of Florence Nightingale's spiritual and emotional revolution after the Crimean War - a moment of crisis, doubt and failure that ultimately inspired her career in medicine - the film features a raucous music hall troupe, who dip in and out of the action with songs in the style of the times.
Bent on vengeance, Florence badgers the authorities into allowing her to investigate the ineptitude of the military commanders through a Royal Commission. This ultimately leads to despair, however, and forces Florence to withdraw from even her closest family following a complete breakdown and a massive crisis of faith.
THU 22:00 Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema (b0bfp4h7)
Series 1
Horror
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.
Mark turns to horror and shows how film-makers have devilishly deployed a range of cinematic tricks to exploit our deepest, darkest and most elemental fears. He explores the recurring elements of horror, including the journey, the jump scare, the scary place, the monster and the chase. He reveals how they have been refined and reinvented in films as diverse as the silent classic The Phantom of the Opera, low-budget cult shockers The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Evil Dead, and Oscar-winners The Silence of the Lambs and Get Out. Mark analyses the importance of archetypal figures such as the clown, the savant and the 'final girl'. And of course, he celebrates his beloved Exorcist films by examining two unforgettable but very different shock moments in The Exorcist and The Exorcist III.
Ultimately, Mark argues, horror is the most cinematic of genres, because no other kind of film deploys images and sound to such powerful and primal effect.
THU 23:00 Science and Islam (b00gksx4)
The Language of Science
Physicist Jim Al-Khalili travels through Syria, Iran, Tunisia and Spain to tell the story of the great leap in scientific knowledge that took place in the Islamic world between the 8th and 14th centuries.
Its legacy is tangible, with terms like algebra, algorithm and alkali all being Arabic in origin and at the very heart of modern science - there would be no modern mathematics or physics without algebra, no computers without algorithms and no chemistry without alkalis.
For Baghdad-born Al-Khalili, this is also a personal journey, and on his travels he uncovers a diverse and outward-looking culture, fascinated by learning and obsessed with science. From the great mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, who did much to establish the mathematical tradition we now know as algebra, to Ibn Sina, a pioneer of early medicine whose Canon of Medicine was still in use as recently as the 19th century, Al-Khalili pieces together a remarkable story of the often-overlooked achievements of the early medieval Islamic scientists.
THU 00:00 Novels That Shaped Our World (m000bpvx)
Series 1
The Class Ceiling
Class is present from the time the very first novels in English appeared. This episode begins with one of the most famous portrayals of the fate of the poor and the destitute - Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, published in 1837. The ‘Condition of England’ novel, by writers such as Dickens, Disraeli and Elizabeth Gaskell, whose Mary Barton is set in industrial Manchester, drew attention to and invoked pity for the lives lived by the have-nots in a ‘two-nation’ society. But, though sympathetic, they fell short of offering support for the aims of working-class movements. By the turn of the next century, though, these had grown in strength. Novels like Robert Tressell’s The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, published in 1914, pressed not just for reform, but for socialism to take root. In the USA, meanwhile, class was thought by some not to exist. F Scott Fitzgerald’s high society The Great Gatsby showed that it did, while the sparkling Jeeves and Wooster series of PG Wodehouse showed that it could be funny.
In the late 1950s, DH Lawrence’s infamous adultery-across-the-classes novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover was put on trial for obscenity, and a new generation of working-class writers emerged with honest portraits of their own communities. Working-class people could now read novels by and about themselves. The episode closes with two books from recent decades that Charles Dickens would surely have recognised - Irvine Welsh’s incendiary Trainspotting and Avarind Adiga’s 2008 Booker Prize-winning The White Tiger. Dickens and Gaskell wrote about the fallout from the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom. The White Tiger shows the fall out from the tech revolution in India. The story of class in the novel has never gone away.
THU 01:00 Greg Davies: Looking for Kes (m000bh0n)
Comedian, actor and ex-English teacher Greg Davies is a lifelong fan of Barry Hines's classic novel A Kestrel for a Knave, the story of Billy Casper training a kestrel as an escape from his troubled home and school life. In this documentary, Greg goes in search of the book's enduring appeal, travelling to Barnsley, where the book was set and where Ken Loach's famous adaptation, Kes, was filmed.
In a series of encounters with Barry Hines's friends and family, collaborators and admirers, Greg offers a warm, funny and poignant tribute to a book that gave a unique voice to the working-class experience and, in Billy Casper, created a young rebel whose story continues to connect with readers more than 50 years after it was first published in 1968.
In the fish and chip shop young Billy visits in Kes, now renamed Caspers, Greg meets Dai Bradley who played Billy Casper. Together they wonder what might have become of him. 'I think he would have kept that fighting spirit,' says Dai. 'There’s a lot of kids like him out there and the message of the book is that we need to find ways to harness that energy.'
Greg also meets members of the local community in the working men's club, where Barry was a regular, and discovers how many characters in the book were inspired by the people he met there, including the notorious PE teacher.
Ken Loach explains why the book provided such perfect source material for the film. 'The truth of the book shone through: the comedy, the use of language and dialect and, of course, the central image of a boy who is trapped, training a bird that flies free.'
Greg visits the site where Barry Hines's brother, Richard, found his own kestrel, the encounter that inspired the character of Billy and the location used in the film. For the first time in 50 years, Richard flies a kestrel again.
In the Sheffield University archives, Greg is thrilled to discover the original handwritten manuscript of A Kestrel for a Knave. There he meets Jarvis Cocker, another fan of the book, who discusses why the book meant so much to him 'That symbolism of escape was powerful for me growing up,' says Jarvis. 'The desire for escape has been a massive engine for creativity for people from working-class backgrounds. You want to make, write or sing something to help you escape.'
THU 02:00 The Joy of Painting (m000hy1g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
THU 02:30 Florence Nightingale (b00c0nqz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 08 MAY 2020
FRI 19:00 Classic Cellists at the BBC (b084nscd)
Julian Lloyd Webber takes an extraordinary musical journey through the BBC archives from the 1950s to the present to celebrate the world of the cello through some of its greatest interpreters. From dazzling performances by legendary masters such as Paul Tortelier, Jacqueline du Pre and Mstislav Rostropovich to some of today's leading interpreters including Yo Yo Ma, Steven Isserlis and Mischa Maisky, Julian gives us a cellist's perspective on an extraordinary virtuoso tradition.
FRI 20:00 Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein (b099229f)
Series 1
World War
Suzy explores the use, abuse and manipulation of music in the Second World War - from swinging jazz to film soundtracks and from mushy ballads to madcap ballets. The war, she demonstrates, wasn't just a military fight but an ideological battle where both sides used music as a weapon to secure their vision for civilisation.
Suzy reveals how the forces' sweetheart Vera Lynn was taken off air by the BBC's 'Dance Music Policy Committee' for fear her sentimental songs undermined the British war effort. But in Nazi Germany, screen siren Zarah Leander had a hit with a song remarkably like Vera's We'll Meet Again. Meanwhile Nazi band Charlie and his Orchestra reworked Cole Porter classics by adding anti-British lyrics to weaken her morale. Though the Nazis banned jazz at home as 'degenerate', Suzy also explores Occupied Paris's incredible jazz scene. And the film revisits concerts given under extraordinary conditions - not least the performance of Wagner's Gotterdammerung' (Twilight of the Gods), which in April 1945 brought the curtain down on the Third Reich.
Despite Hitler's taunt that Britain was 'Das Land ohne Musik' ('The Land without Music'), Suzy reveals the war work of two great British composers. William Walton's Spitfire Prelude became the archetype for a particularly British form of patriotic music. By contrast Michael Tippett was sent to prison for being a conscientious objector, but his anti-war oratorio A Child of Our Time was showcased at the Royal Albert Hall. The right of people to freely express themselves was, after all, what we were fighting for.
For some, music was a way of transcending desperate circumstances. Suzy examines Olivier Messiaen's haunting Quartet for the End of Time, written amid the desolation of a POW camp. But at Auschwitz, Suzy reveals how music was co-opted to serve the Nazis' evil purposes. Cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch explains how musical ability saved her from the gas chambers. Drafted into the Auschwitz Women's Orchestra, she had to play marches to drive prisoners to and from work and to give a private performance of Schumann's exquisitely innocent Traumerei to the infamous Dr Mengele.
The events of the 20th century show, Suzy concludes, that though we should continue to love and celebrate music, we should also be wary of its seductive power.
FRI 21:00 Top of the Pops (m000hy0w)
Bruno Brookes and Sybil Ruscoe present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 10 August 1989 and featuring Liza Minnelli, Aswad and Big Fun.
FRI 21:30 Sounds of the 70s 2 (b01jv6sd)
Disco - Ain't No Stopping Us Now
Disco was all pervasive in the mid and early 70s. And while towards the end of the decade punk stole the headlines, disco still had the high street. Everyone was into it and getting down on it at the local discotheque. Join us in a celebration of all things disco including performances by The Jacksons, Thelma Houston, Sylvester, Carl Douglas, George McCrae, Sister Sledge, McFadden and Whitehead, Eruption and Gloria Gaynor.
FRI 22:00 Definitely Dusty (b00780bt)
Documentary looking at the life and work of soul and pop diva Dusty Springfield, singer of such classics as You Don't Have to Say You Love Me and Son of a Preacher Man, who was equally famous for her trademark panda eyes and blonde beehive.
Using archive footage and interviews shot in the UK and the US, it charts her progress from plain Catholic schoolgirl to glamorous star and ventures behind the extravagant image to reveal a complex and vulnerable character.
Featuring interviews with fellow musicians from a career spanning four decades, including Elton John, Burt Bacharach, Neil Tennant, Lulu and Martha Reeves.
Dusty's protective inner circle of friends have never spoken about her on camera before. Pat Rhodes, Dusty's personal secretary for her entire solo career, her manager Vicky Wickham, ardent fan-turned-backing singer Simon Bell and others talk about the highs and lows of the woman they knew and loved.
FRI 23:00 Dusty Springfield at the BBC (b01qyvw7)
A selection of Dusty Springfield's performances at the BBC from 1961 to 1995. Dusty was one of Britain's great pop divas, guaranteed to give us a big melody in songs soaring with drama and yearning.
The clips show Dusty's versatility as an artist and performer and include songs from her folk beginnings with The Springfields; the melodrama of You Don't Have to Say You Love Me; Dusty's homage to Motown with Heatwave and Nowhere to Run; the Jacques Brel song If You Go Away; the Bacharach and David tune The Look of Love; and Dusty's collaboration with Pet Shop Boys in the late 1980s.
There are also some great duets from Dusty's career with Tom Jones and Mel Torme.
FRI 00:00 The People's History of Pop (b07l24rf)
1966-1976: The Love Affair
Writer, journalist and broadcaster Danny Baker looks at the years of his youth - 1966 to 1976 - a time when music fans really let rip.
From the psychedelia of the Beatles' Sgt Pepper to the birth of the large-scale music festival, this is when hair, sounds and ideas got wilder and looser as a whole new generation of fans got really serious about British pop music and the world around them.
There is testimony from hippies who found love and happiness at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival, from a teenager growing up in Birmingham who discovered a new sound called 'heavy metal', and from fans sent wild with excitement after David Bowie and Marc Bolan were beamed down and glam rock was born.
A shy young man tells how he found expression through progressive rock, a fan relives her weekend escapes to Wigan Casino and a new scene called northern soul, and a young man discovers a new hero as reggae becomes mainstream.
Unearthed pop treasures include a rare item of clothing worn by Marc Bolan and given to a young fan as a gift after he knocked on Marc's door. A former teacher and pupil of Peckham Manor School are reunited, more than forty years after they witnessed an unknown Bob Marley perform in their sports hall, and rare photos of the event are shown. Plus, some rare and special material from the biggest star of the 70s himself - David Bowie.
FRI 01:00 Jazz 625 (m0004nrl)
For One Night Only
A special 90-minute jazz show that pays tribute to the iconic 1960s BBC Two series of the same name and recreates the look and feel of the original broadcasts.
Recorded live at the 2019 Cheltenham Jazz Festival and hosted by Andi Oliver, the programme features a house band and special guests including Gregory Porter, Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones, Joshua Redman, Jacqui Dankworth and Cleo Laine.
The programme also includes classic archive performances from the original series and interviews and features looking back at a classic time in jazz.
FRI 02:30 Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein (b099229f)
[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 (b08qkvcq)
Andrew Marr on Churchill: Blood, Sweat and Oil Paint
21:00 TUE (b06714yz)
Angela Carter: Of Wolves and Women
01:20 SUN (b0bf4whd)
Archaeology: A Secret History
22:00 WED (p0109k4g)
BBC Young Musician
19:00 SUN (m000hy1p)
BBC Young Musician
02:20 SUN (m000hy1p)
Britain's Outlaws: Highwaymen, Pirates and Rogues
22:00 MON (b06rfl46)
Classic Cellists at the BBC
19:00 FRI (b084nscd)
Country & Beyond with The Shires
01:00 SAT (b0bs6f0f)
Dan Cruickshank's Warsaw: Resurrecting History
23:00 TUE (b06r12fd)
David Stratton’s Stories of Australian Cinema
21:00 SUN (m000hy15)
David Stratton’s Stories of Australian Cinema
02:30 WED (m000hy15)
Definitely Dusty
22:00 FRI (b00780bt)
Dusty Springfield at the BBC
23:00 FRI (b01qyvw7)
Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency
23:00 MON (b0140vb9)
Florence Nightingale
21:00 THU (b00c0nqz)
Florence Nightingale
02:30 THU (b00c0nqz)
Greg Davies: Looking for Kes
01:00 THU (m000bh0n)
How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears
20:00 SAT (b044jl70)
How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears
03:00 SAT (b044jl70)
Ian Hislop's Fake News: A True History
21:00 MON (m00095hv)
Ian Hislop's Fake News: A True History
02:30 MON (m00095hv)
Jazz 625
01:00 FRI (m0004nrl)
Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema
22:00 THU (b0bfp4h7)
Meet the Romans with Mary Beard
20:00 MON (b01hcgn1)
Michael Wood's Story of England
20:00 WED (b00v3z4r)
Novels That Shaped Our World
00:00 THU (m000bpvx)
Pain, Pus and Poison: The Search for Modern Medicines
20:00 TUE (p01f53b9)
Pain, Pus and Poison: The Search for Modern Medicines
02:30 TUE (p01f53b9)
Pride and Prejudice
20:00 THU (b0074r75)
Primates
19:00 SAT (m000hrfv)
Primates
02:00 SAT (m000hrfv)
Retreat: Meditations from a Monastery
22:00 SUN (b09bdzpf)
Science and Islam
23:00 THU (b00gksx4)
Secrets of Bones
19:30 MON (b03vrtzp)
Secrets of Bones
19:30 TUE (b03wct07)
Secrets of Bones
19:30 WED (b03x3zfs)
Secrets of Bones
19:30 THU (b03xsgwh)
Slade at the BBC
23:30 SAT (b01pdt89)
Sounds of the 70s 2
21:30 FRI (b01jv6sd)
State of Happiness
21:00 SAT (m000hy8t)
State of Happiness
21:45 SAT (m000hy8y)
TOTP2
22:30 SAT (b01cyxhs)
The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers
01:00 TUE (b09jj0k0)
The Art of Japanese Life
01:00 WED (b08v8gxj)
The Culture Show
22:00 TUE (b00ttbnb)
The Joy of Painting
19:00 MON (m000hy0r)
The Joy of Painting
02:00 MON (m000hy0r)
The Joy of Painting
19:00 TUE (m000hy0m)
The Joy of Painting
02:00 TUE (m000hy0m)
The Joy of Painting
19:00 WED (m000hy13)
The Joy of Painting
02:00 WED (m000hy13)
The Joy of Painting
19:00 THU (m000hy1g)
The Joy of Painting
02:00 THU (m000hy1g)
The People's History of Pop
00:00 FRI (b07l24rf)
The Renaissance Unchained
00:00 TUE (b0726fyv)
Timewatch
21:00 WED (b017ctqp)
Top of the Pops
00:30 SAT (m000hqmy)
Top of the Pops
21:00 FRI (m000hy0w)
Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein
20:00 FRI (b099229f)
Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein
02:30 FRI (b099229f)
Two Types: The Faces of Britain
00:00 WED (b0903ppd)
Utopia: In Search of the Dream
01:00 MON (b092sb6f)
Vienna: Empire, Dynasty and Dream
00:00 MON (p046dxfw)
Wild Arabia
20:00 SUN (p014y5m7)
Wise Children
23:00 SUN (p0892kf6)