Series charting Michael Palin's trek across the Sahara Desert. Michael arrives at the border of Niger and Algeria, the most desolate crossing, and then turning north Michael passes through the mountains of the Hoggar massif before pausing in the oil and gas fields of central Algeria. Then onto Libya to attend the very last reunion of the Desert Rats of Tobruk, before turning west along the north coast past deserted classical sites at Apollonia, Cyrene and Leptis Magna.
Crossing into Tunis, Michael relives the filming of The Life of Brian in Monastir, before taking the Maghreb Express to the dangerous city of Algiers, and then west to Algeria's second city, Oran.
Just along the coast is Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on Morocco's coast, where Michael talks to would-be immigrants before returning to Gibraltar. En route he learns of the terrible fate that has engulfed many Saharan people who attempt the eight-mile crossing.
Historians Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn bring back to life the golden age of steam and explore how the Victorian railways created modern Britain.
The introduction of steam railways in the early 19th century changed Britain in a way no one could have predicted. This episode explores how they created a domestic revolution, changing the way we lived, from the houses we lived in to the food we ate.
In the middle of winter, the team arrive at the Ffestiniog Railway in Snowdonia to find out how millions of tons of slate were moved down the mountain. This is the slate that covers roofs in every corner of the country, and all of it was moved by rail.
Underground, Alex experiences the brutal conditions faced by miners in Llechwedd quarry who would have endured 12-hour shifts suspended from iron chains. It's an exhilarating ride down the narrow winding track aboard the 'gravity train' with the whole crew hanging on to the brakes all the way.
At Foxfields Railway in Staffordshire, built to transport coal to the nearby mainline, Ruth gets on the loco's footplate as it is driven up the steepest railway in Britain. Coal was to change everything in our day-to-day lives, right down to the way we cooked, the shape of our pots and the role of women who had to deal with the tyranny of keeping clothes clean in this dirty industrial world.
Laure confronts Gilou when she discovers he has been instrumental in helping Cisco's gang acquire weapons for the upcoming heist. Meanwhile, Edelman must work out how to best act in Lola's defence.
Laure tells Ali that Gilou has infiltrated Cisco's gang. They play for time in their investigation to protect him, but their efforts are jeopardised when Judge Bourdieu orders the arrest of Cisco's son Titi.
Art historian Sandrine Voillet tells the story of Paris in the 20th century. How it embraced technology (the Lumiere brothers, Louis Renault and the Metro), counter-culture (Picasso, Josephine Baker and Serge Gainsbourg) and immigration to preserve its reputation as a lighthouse city for the world.
But it was not plain sailing. Resistance to modernisation, the Nazi occupation of France and rioting in the banlieues tell a darker story and reveal problems that remain unresolved. Along the way, Sandrine meets Picasso’s grandson and Jane Birkin.
Nicky Campbell presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 5 July 1990 and including performances by Inspiral Carpets, Double Trouble and Massivo featuring Tracy.
Anthea Turner presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 12 July 1990 and featuring Elton John, The Stone Roses and Gun.
New Order's Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert unpack a playlist of electro, pop and new wave classics spanning four decades. Stephen and Gillian have been married for 24 years and have been in New Order together for even longer, but they still manage to surprise one another with their musical tastes. While Stephen declares Captain Beefheart an early influence, Gillian confesses her teenage love for a disco classic. During an hour of top tunes, Stephen also reveals the moment he was mistaken for Stevie Wonder, and Gillian recalls how her Dad was a fan of punk.
From Kraftwerk to Can, David Bowie to Kate Bush, Magazine to Grace Jones and many more, this stellar playlist by Stephen and Gillian is brimming with iconic performances.
SUNDAY 24 JANUARY 2021
SUN 19:00 The Diary of Anne Frank (b00gndt1)
Series 1
Episode 1
June 1942. WWII Amsterdam is under Nazi occupation. Anne Frank, a teenage Jewish girl, is celebrating her 13th birthday with her family and friends by having a party. Amongst her birthday presents, she is given a red diary that she starts to write in immediately. Days later, call up papers arrive for her 16-year-old sister Margot and her parents, Otto and Edith, decide to hasten their plan to go into hiding from the Nazis to ensure that the family do not get separated.
The next morning, the Franks head to Otto's spice company. Once there, they are led past the warehouses by their helpers in the office and taken up to a secret annex at the back of the building that occupies the three top floors. Otto and Edith will sleep in one room, with Margot and Anne next door in another. They will soon be joined by their friends Mr and Mrs Van Daan and their teenage son Peter, who will live on the floor above, in the larger shared living area. At the very top of the building is a disused attic, too cold to sleep in but useful for storing food. They must obey strict rules in the annex, remaining completely silent during working hours while the warehouse men are in the building. Only the faithful office staff know of their existence and have agreed to help them survive.
At first, Edith and Margot find the confinement hard to bear and sink into depression, while Otto and Anne make themselves useful, arranging the furniture that has been hidden there for them, and sewing material together to make black-out curtains. The Van Daans soon arrive and liven things up, especially when Peter reveals that he has brought his pet cat Mouschi, while Anne was forced to leave her cat at home. Anne does not think much of Peter but decides she must try and be pleasant to him to keep the peace.
SUN 19:30 Secret Knowledge (b01rml7t)
Bolsover Castle
Lucy Worsley tells the story of Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire. Built in the early 17th century, it became the pleasure palace of playboy Cavalier and ambitious courtier William Cavendish.
Guiding us on a tour of the castle and its remarkable collection of artworks, Lucy brings to life the spectacular masque held by Cavendish to win the favour of King Charles I.
And from within the walls of this eccentric architectural gem emerges a colourful tale, capturing the tensions of early 17th-century England that would eventually lead the nation to civil war.
SUN 20:00 The Victorian Slum (b0812m7y)
The 1880s
In the heart of the modern East End of London, a Victorian slum has been recreated and a group of 21st-century people are moving in. Michael Mosley joins them to tell the extraordinary story of how the Victorian East End changed our attitude to poverty forever.
The slum dwellers have moved into the 1880s - a turbulent decade for London's East End. Unemployment was sky high, living conditions intolerable - but still people came, desperate for work.
The pressures are immediately felt by the Howarth family, who find themselves employing new workers in their Victorian sweat shop. Their workforce would have been made up of newly arrived immigrants, and the Howarths' workers all have their own story to tell. But Mandy Howarth is moved to tears when she finds out that the sweated trades are part of her own family history.
The Potter family become street sellers, selling sheep's trotters and jellied eels in London's East End. But their newfound living is quickly curtailed, as it was in 1880s Bethnal Green. Fellow slum residents Andy Gardiner and John Barker come face to face with the harsh realities of working life in London's docks during the era when only one of them could have hoped to earn.
SUN 21:00 Ireland to Sydney By Any Means (b00dls64)
Episode 2
Gritty adventurer Charley Boorman returns for his most daring journey so far, covering three continents, 25 countries and over 20,000 miles from Ireland to Australia.
Charley's adventure takes him from the shores of Calais to the shores of Bandar-e Abbas. First, he puts his newly-learnt sailing skills to use and successfully crosses the tempestuous English Channel in a sailing dinghy.
From Calais, Charley and the team navigate their way through France and Italy, across to Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria, before pressing on through far western Asia from Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Iran. The expedition hinges on whether they can enter Iran and make it to Dubai in time to catch a container ship to Mumbai.
Charley travels the distance on a vast array of transport, taking a luxury train to Venice, riding a Parisian city bicycle, wrestling with a sidecar motorcycle around a hairpin bend in Georgia, hitching a ride on a truck in Iran and onboard a sleeper train.
On the way, he and the team are faced with numerous logistical obstacles including a vintage car with an empty fuel tank, an ex-Soviet jeep with dodgy brakes and a serious bureaucratic hurdle in order to get their visas into Iran.
But Charley's passion for befriending all those around him and his notorious sense of humour means they also taste the flavours and meet the faces of this eclectic part of the world - from Cenk, the Turkish fixer who sings his Dolmus Blues, to a young Croat lady who tells the story of her father's capture and imprisonment in a concentration camp, and sharing hubbly bubbly with locals in a tea room in the Iranian desert.
SUN 22:00 Storyville (b09gljns)
My Mother's Lost Children
An eccentric Jewish family is thrown into turmoil when two stolen children reappear after 40 years.
SUN 23:30 Victorian Sensations (m0005pr9)
Series 1
Seeing and Believing
In the final episode of this series, psychotherapist Philippa Perry time-travels back to the 1890s to explore how the late Victorian passion for science co-existed with a deeply held belief in the paranormal. Using a collection of rare and restored Victorian films from the BFI National Archive, she shows how the latest media innovations made use of contemporary ideas of ghosts and the afterlife – and how this ‘new media’ anticipated today’s networked world.
The final years of Queen Victoria’s reign were a moment when the old Victorian order rubbed shoulders with the beginnings of our modern world. It was a chaotic, febrile time of discovery and innovation in science and technology, entertainment and art, and the Victorians had to make sense of it all.
Philippa finds out how Marconi’s early experiments with wireless telegraphy encouraged speculation amongst the public and scientists that telepathy – communication between minds – would be the next scientific breakthrough. She also replicates eminent physicist Oliver Lodge’s pioneering experiment with radio waves and discovers his fascination for exploring the paranormal with the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). This Victorian group of ghost hunters included William James, a pioneer of psychology, biologist Alfred Russel Wallace and even Prime Minister William Gladstone. Buried in the archives of the SPR in Cambridge University Library, Philippa finds an incredible Census of Hallucinations that contains 17,000 ghostly encounters sourced from the Victorian public.
Maybe it’s not surprising that people of the age saw so many ghosts because, in a sense, spirits did haunt the Victorian home. Every Victorian innovation - from photography to motion pictures, phonographs to fantasy books – had its own supernatural genre. Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the hyper-rational Sherlock Holmes, drew on his real-life experience as a ghostbuster to write his ghostly fiction. Philippa learns the art of spirit photography from Almudena Romero and poses for her own ghostly picture as well as exploring a rare private collection of phonographs, the recent craze that allowed Victorians to hear communications from the past and listen to their loved ones after their deaths for the first time.
Philippa also explores the impact of the arrival in 1896 of motion pictures, the decade’s greatest and most magical media innovation. BFI curator Bryony Dixon shows her restored Victorian trick films, from the funny and feminist to a disturbing fake execution. Philippa then creates her own homage to the Big Swallow trick film and eats the cameraman.
The boundary between fact and fantasy was often blurred, and sensationalism infused the new tabloid journalism. At Cambridge University’s Institute of Astronomy, Philippa learns about other forms of long-distance communication and the flurry of press interest in stories from Mars. Dr Joshua Nall reveals that some of the greatest public figures of the decade, from Nikola Tesla to Sir Francis Galton, were convinced that signalling with Martians was possible. HG Wells’s story The Crystal Egg takes up this theme and predicts future media developments and the power of communications. And even Queen Victoria herself took advantage of the globally networked world that was emerging to allow the film cameras in to capture her triumphant Diamond Jubilee procession for all her imperial subjects. The jubilee was the first global mass media event and the footage captures the essence of the 1890s: the old Victorian order with an empire and an empress, rubbing shoulders with a world we recognise - a modern one of film cameras and global communications. This was the decade the future landed.
SUN 00:30 Rome: A History of the Eternal City (b01p65l8)
City of the Sacred
Simon Sebag Montefiore looks at how every event in ancient Rome revolved around religion. From the foundation myth through to the deification of emperors, nothing could happen without calling upon the pantheon of Roman gods. Simon investigates how the Romans worshipped and sacrificed to the gods. He discovers that sacredness defined what was Roman and it was the responsibility of every Roman to play their part in the cult. Even the ancient Roman sewer was holy ground!
SUN 01:30 The Victorian Slum (b0812m7y)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
SUN 02:30 Ireland to Sydney By Any Means (b00dls64)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
MONDAY 25 JANUARY 2021
MON 19:00 The Diary of Anne Frank (b00gn81c)
Series 1
Episode 2
October 1942. World War II. In the secret annex where Anne Frank is in hiding from the Nazis with her family and close friends the Van Daan family, the toilet is blocked and her father, Otto, is forced to try and unblock it with a stick. When he fails, they have to resort to using jam jars until it is mended. Their helpers in the offices downstairs call a plumber, and the family are terrified that he will need to come up to the annex and they will be discovered. Fortunately, it is finally sorted from downstairs and all is well.
Anne finds Mrs Van Daan increasingly hard to bear, as she orders her around and criticises her in a way that her liberal parents never do. She also finds Peter Van Daan frustratingly dim, and never misses an opportunity to tell him so. But overall they are getting used to their incarceration, and the strict rules of daily quiet by which they must live. Otto oversees their school studies and everyone has their routine tasks to perform. Only at night when the bomb raids start is Anne so scared that she runs into her parents' room for comfort.
Anne invites Miep and her husband Jan to come to dinner in the annex and to stay overnight in her room, while she and Margot camp in their parents' room, and Miep agrees. Anne is thrilled and draws up a special menu in their honour, which Mrs Van Daan cooks for them. But Miep brings the bad news, which she tells only the Franks, that the Van Daans' apartment has been ransacked by the Nazis and all their property confiscated. When Mrs Van Daan asks Miep to bring her some more of her things, it is Anne who covers the difficult moment with a toast to the helpers.
MON 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000rpks)
Winter Specials
Through the Window
A cleverly constructed shape on canvas! Peek through the windowpane and share a beautiful snowy day outside with artist Bob Ross.
MON 20:00 Secrets of the Museum (m000fjg5)
Series 1
Episode 3
Inside every museum is a hidden world, and now, cameras have been allowed behind the scenes at the world-famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Only a small part of the two million wonders in the collection are on display to the public. But in this new series we go behind closed doors to explore all the treasures of art, design and performance the museum has to offer.
We follow experts and conservators at work in this treasure trove of the nation’s favourite objects, as they breathe new life into fragile marvels, uncover hidden stories, and battle to keep the past alive.
This week, we join curators Steph and Jenny as they plan a major new exhibition celebrating the work of innovative British fashion designer Mary Quant. They want to illustrate how the designer shook up women’s fashion in the 1960s with clothing that liberated women from decades of corsetry. Although the museum has a big archive of Quant dresses already, Steph has a critical gap in the collection. After an appeal to the public, a woman from Yorkshire comes forward with a dress that could be perfect to show how off exactly how Quant hiked hemlines higher than ever before.
Jenny Fenwick was 17 years old when she bought her mustard-coloured Mary Quant mini-dress from the Sheffield branch of Topshop. But after years of hard partying, the dress will need all the love and skill that conservator Frances can muster in order to make it exhibition-ready.
When the Quant exhibition opens, Jenny arrives to see her dress in pride of place - and is moved to think that these dresses meant freedom for her, and a whole generation of women.
Meanwhile, curator Julius is delving deep into the stores to uncover some of the very first objects ever given to the museum. He tracks down a hand-painted writing case, made in Kashmir in the 1850s, that once belonged to Queen Victoria, who donated it to the museum. We’ll see inside the beautiful handmade piece, including the original knife and scissors the Queen used to cut and sharpen her quill pens. The writing case will join a spectacular serving dish, or salver, made from fine silver and gold filigree, in a special display to mark 200 years since Victoria and Albert were born.
The museum also receives donations today, just as it did when it first started. A woman from west London, Shalaleh, has offered the V&A her treasured family collection of rare saris, dating back to the 1930s. Shalaleh’s grandmother was part of the Indian aristocracy in the days of the Raj, and travelled to Paris in order to buy fabrics from the top fashion houses of the day for her saris.
These beautiful chiffons and silks are a welcome addition to curator Divia’s collection. With no daughters to give the saris to, Shalaleh knows her grandmother would be delighted to see the saris join the museum for the public to enjoy.
But modern-day objects are just as important as historic items to the museum’s collection. We’ll see Rapid Response curator Corinna hit the streets as she gather the most significant designs of today - that could become the treasures of tomorrow. The team have are hoping to acquire the flags and logo of climate change activists Extinction Rebellion. When they join the collection, these contemporary pieces will sit alongside other emblems of social change now - such as an umbrella from the Hong Kong protest movement, and a burqini.
We’ll also follow conservators as they prepare for the return of a huge Victorian masterpiece to the galleries. ‘The Pilgrim Outside the Garden of Idleness’, by renowned Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, is from 1898. But the heavy and extremely valuable artwork is in its delicate original frame and calls for careful conservation to preserve the fragile gilt construction. For 100 years the museum has kept the painting safe, but it’s now down to tech services Allen and a team specialists to manhandle the artwork up several flights of stairs to its original place on the gallery wall.
MON 21:00 Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema (m000rpkv)
Series 3
Cult Movies
Mark Kermode invites you on an entertaining journey into the weird and wonderful world of cult movies, filled with some of the strangest, most truly original and unexpected moments in cinema.
Film-makers don’t decide what becomes a cult movie, argues Mark. We - the audience - do. Mark looks at the qualities a film needs to acquire cult status, and the main types of cult movie, from films that are so bad they’re good, to groundbreaking masterpieces of foreign language cinema.
Some cult films set out to shock and break taboos; others are camp classics embraced by audiences who find new or hidden meanings in them. Mark also explores the strange phenomenon of cult films about actual cults, and looks at the future of cult cinema in an age when even the most obscure and offbeat movie is just a download away.
MON 22:00 Score: Cinema's Greatest Soundtracks (m0002pf6)
What makes a film score unforgettable? Featuring Hans Zimmer, James Cameron, Danny Elfman, John Williams, Quincy Jones and Trent Reznor, amongst many others, Score: Cinema’s Greatest Soundtracks brings Hollywood's elite composers together for a privileged look inside the challenges and creative secrecy of the world's most international music genre, the film score.
MON 23:30 Australian Hits at the BBC (m000mts7)
A look back at a wide-ranging selection of the top songs performed by the music acts that came here from the Land Down Under, and the appearances on a selection of BBC shows that saw them get a grip on the UK charts.
Over the decades, those bringing a bit of Australian sunshine and spirit to British screens have included Aussie pop pioneers The Easybeats, rock legends AC/DC, and the new sensations who became one of the nation’s most successful acts of all time, INXS.
Also featured are groundbreaking Aborigine band Yothu Yindi and a true giant of the Australian music scene, John Farnham, whose hit You’re the Voice has achieved almost national anthem status. A selection of songs from the 80s, 90s and noughties will have you singing along to Love Is in the Air, blushing to ‘I Touch Myself’ and stepping back in time with Kylie and Jason, Kylie and Nick Cave and, of course, some classic solo Kylie too.
MON 00:30 Top of the Pops (m000kxky)
Kylie Minogue
A compilation of classic Kylie performances from the Top of the Pops studio.
MON 01:00 The Joy of Painting (m000rpks)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
MON 01:30 Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema (m000rpkv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
MON 02:30 Secrets of the Museum (m000fjg5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
TUESDAY 26 JANUARY 2021
TUE 19:00 The Diary of Anne Frank (b00gnv10)
Series 1
Episode 3
Amsterdam, November 1942. The routine in the annex is now very established. Otto tries to keep up with company business by lying on the floor and listening to meetings downstairs, and he is shocked to discover that the building has had to be sold. They fear that the new owner will demand access to the annex and they will be discovered, but Mr Kleiman tells the owner that he has left the key at home. The lease won't be exchanged for months yet, and the war might be over by then, so for now the threat is over.
When Miep arrives she tells them their friendly grocer has gone missing, and they fear he might betray them to the Nazis as he has been providing extra supplies for the annex, but Miep trusts him. Miep also gives Mr Dussel the latest letter and food parcel from his fiance, which annoys Anne as she thinks he is putting them at greater risk with his letter exchanges. Her parents agree but do not want to say anything to him.
That evening Anne helps to wash her mother's hair and for once they are close, talking about how tiring she was as a small baby. It is Hanukkah and everyone in the annex gathers for the ceremony around the dinner table. But when drips start falling from the ceiling onto the food Peter dashes off to the attic, followed by Anne, where he admits that he forgot to put out the cat's litter tray. Anne is convinced he is a fool and teases him.
Food shortages are getting worse and Bep from the office now comes up to the annex for lunch every day. Anne asks Mr Dussel to let her use their shared bedroom for the agreed time but he isn't ready to give up the desk and they row. Otto talks to Dussel and persuades him how important writing is to Anne.
TUE 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000rpp1)
Winter Specials
Before the Snowfall
American painter Bob Ross invites you to anticipate winter’s white blanket as he creates a soft, delicate cabin landscape draped in snow.
TUE 20:00 Inside Obama's White House (b076z4yp)
The Arc of History
The last instalment of this definitive account of Obama's presidency tells how Obama got re-elected for a second term and tried to tackle America's most intractable social problems - guns, immigration and race.
Episode four begins with president Obama's decision to launch the special operation into Pakistan, to catch Osama Bin Laden. Former CIA director Leon Panetta describes how Obama decides to go ahead despite odds no better than
50:50 and the strong misgivings of top advisors.
As his re-election campaign gears up, Obama has to make a tough choice on contraception - whether to side with the Catholic bishops, or health secretary Kathleen Sebelius and feminist activists. Obama chooses the women, and they contribute to his convincing election victory.
But soon after his re-election, America is shocked by the Sandy Hook massacre - 20 children are shot dead in a Connecticut school. The families of the victims and senior advisor Valerie Jarrett recall the president's attempts to strengthen gun legislation, but they are defeated by the gun lobby.
Obama's other ambitious reforms fared no better. Cecilia Munoz and Valerie Jarrett reveal how Obama worked with allies in Congress to create a bipartisan consensus on immigration but is defeated by the Republicans. The president can move forward only through executive action.
The background of the first black president is different from most African Americans'. Raised in Hawaii by white grandparents, Obama initially downplays racial issues but the shooting of black teenager Trayvon Martin provokes him to speak out. When Ferguson, Missouri, becomes a flashpoint of conflict between police and African Americans, Obama urges young activists to channel their anger into progressive change.
TUE 21:00 Life of a Mountain (m000rpmf)
A Year on Helvellyn
This spectacular film features a year in the life of the Lake District National Park’s most popular peak, Helvellyn. Three years in the making, award-winning film-maker Terry Abraham’s photography captures the beauty of the Lakeland fells and wildlife through the seasons and the insights of those that live by, care for and visit the mountain.
Sharing their wide-ranging expertise and passion for the peak, the film’s contributors create a picture of Helvellyn that combines nature, adventure sports, art, survival and history, and features an exhilarating RAF low-level fighter plane flight through its stunning and much-loved landscape.
This is the final instalment in Terry Abraham’s popular Lake District trilogy. His other two films feature Scafell Pike and Blencathra.
TUE 22:30 Mountain (b0b1xs2d)
Jaw-dropping exploration of our obsessions with high places and how they have come to capture our imagination. Only three centuries ago, climbing a mountain would have been considered close to lunacy. The idea scarcely existed that wild landscapes might hold any sort of attraction. Peaks were places of peril, not beauty. Why, then, are we now drawn to mountains? Filmed by the world's leading high-altitude cinematographers and set to a specially curated musical performance by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Mountain captures the fierce beauty of some of the world's most treacherous landscapes and the awe they inspire.
TUE 23:30 Spiral (p091v6z9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Saturday]
TUE 00:25 Spiral (p091v6zc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:55 on Saturday]
TUE 01:15 The Joy of Painting (m000rpp1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
TUE 01:40 Mountain (b0b1xs2d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:30 today]
TUE 02:40 Inside Obama's White House (b076z4yp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 27 JANUARY 2021
WED 19:00 The Diary of Anne Frank (b00gnws1)
Series 1
Episode 4
Anne is having a birthday party. She is blowing out the candles on her magnificent chocolate cake, surrounded by friends. Suddenly she wakes up and remembers she is in the annexe, and her 14th birthday will be a much more modest affair. Her family give her whatever they can, but the only present that really excites her is the bar of chocolate she is given.
Anne is growing into a young woman and is amazed by the changes happening to her body and emotions. Her periods have started and she is becoming aware of her sexuality. She has even started to look differently at Peter, especially when he passes her on the stairs, wearing just a towel. Otto measures Anne and Margot against the wall and finds that Anne has grown three inches in the last year.
The families are growing out of their clothes and don't have the money to replace them. In fact, the Van Daans have little money left and row furiously about whether they should sell Mrs Van Daan's fur coat. When Anne walks in on their argument, Mrs Van Daan turns on her and Anne goes up to the attic to sulk.
When Peter comes up to the attic she tells him that she sees him differently now and apologises for having teased him in the past. She asks him if he finds Margot attractive and he says he's never noticed. She invites herself to accompany him down to the warehouse to collect the potatoes.
WED 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000rpm6)
Winter Specials
Cabin in the Hollow
Soft misty background, sweet snow-kissed cabin, and rich trees and bushes, all nestled down inside a winter oval painting by Bob Ross.
WED 20:00 Queen Victoria's Children (b01pp9l9)
Princes Will Be Princes...
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert shared a passionate marriage. Behind closed doors, royal domestic life often seemed like a battlefield.
In a 60-year family saga, this three-part series explores the reign of Victoria through her personal relationships with her husband and her nine children. It is a story of manipulation, conflict, intimidation, emotional blackmail, and fevered attempts by her children to escape the clutches of their domineering and needy mother.
The series uses a wealth of written material and photos left by Victoria, Albert and their children, including letters, diaries, memoirs and journals, to bring the subject and characters to life.
This final episode focuses on Victoria's relationship with her sons and how, after Albert's death, they struggled to live up to his model of purity. It explores Victoria's difficult relationship with her eldest son Bertie, whom she blamed for Albert's death, believing his sexual indiscretions to have fatally weakened her husband. It also examines her relationship with her son Leopold, the physically weak but spirited haemophiliac who put up the most determined effort to break free from his mother's control. Ultimately, the idea of monarchy based on purity is put to the test as the philandering Bertie comes to the throne.
WED 21:00 The Windermere Children (m000dtcz)
August, 1945. A coachload of children arrive at the Calgarth Estate by Lake Windermere. They are child survivors of the Nazi Holocaust that has devastated Europe’s Jewish population. Carrying only the clothes they wear and a few meagre possessions, they bear the emotional and physical scars of all they have suffered.
Charged with looking after them is Oscar Friedmann, a German-born child psychologist. He and his team of counsellors have just four months to help the children reclaim their lives. By the lake, in sunshine and rain the children eat, learn English, play football and ride bikes. They yearn for news of their loved ones every day, and meanwhile they are invited to express their trauma through painting. Some locals taunt them but they are embraced by others. A number of the older children steal and they are haunted by nightmares. Nevertheless, it is in this environment that they begin to heal.
Eventually, letters from The Red Cross arrive with the terrible confirmation that for nearly all the children their siblings and parents have been murdered. One child, however, is convinced that his brother survived.
The Windermere Children is the stark, moving and ultimately redemptive story of the bonds they make with one another, and of how the friendships forged at Windermere become a lifeline to a fruitful future. In the absence of relatives, they find family in each other.
WED 22:30 The Windermere Children: In Their Own Words (m000dt7g)
The story of the pioneering project to rehabilitate child survivors of the Holocaust on the shores of Lake Windermere. In the year that marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and the Holocaust, this powerful documentary, which accompanies the BBC Two drama, The Windermere Children, reveals a little-known story of 300 young orphaned Jewish refugees, who began new lives in England’s Lake District in the summer of 1945.
With compelling testimony from some of the last living Holocaust survivors, the film explores an extraordinary success story that emerged from the darkest of times, all beginning with the arrival of ten Stirling bombers carrying the 300 children from Prague to Carlisle on 14 August 1945. The survivor interviews include extraordinary first-hand accounts of both their wartime experiences, separation from their families and the horrors they experienced, but also their wonder at arriving in Britain and their lives thereafter.
The children hailed from very different backgrounds, including rural Poland, metropolitan Warsaw Czechoslovakia and Berlin. Some had grown up in poverty, others in middle-class comfort. Their rehabilitation in England was organised by one charity, the Central British Fund (CBF). Leonard Montefiore, a prominent Jewish philanthropist, used his pre-war experience of the Kindertransport and successfully lobbied the British government to agree to allow up to 1,000 young Jewish concentration camp survivors into Britain. It was decided that the first 300 children would be brought from the liberated camp of Theresienstadt to Britain. And serendipitously, empty accommodation was found on the shores of Lake Windermere in a defunct factory. During the war, it had built seaplanes, but after D-Day the factory was closed, and the workers’ accommodation stood empty. With space to house them and in a truly beautiful setting, it was to prove the perfect location for these traumatised children.
The CBF, however, was in uncharted territory. A project to mass-rehabilitate a group of traumatised children had never been attempted before. But in the idyllic setting of Windermere and with just the right team assembled, the children were given the chance to unlearn the survival techniques they’d picked up in the camps. With the freedom to ride bikes, play football, learn English, socialise with local teenagers and swim in the lake, they began to come to terms with the horrors they had experienced and the fact that their mothers, fathers and siblings had perished.
Despite the fact that the UK government initially only offered two-year temporary visas, with strict immigration policies enforced in other countries and without families to return to, it soon became clear that there was nowhere else for most of the children to go. Many of the 300 stayed in the UK for their entire lives, becoming British citizens and raising children of their own.
Now, 75 years later, the close friendships that were forged in Windermere remain and many consider each other as family. Reflecting on the survivors’ lives after Windermere, the film includes touching home movie footage and remarkable success stories, like Sir Ben Helfgott’s incredible weightlifting career, representing Britain at the 1956 Olympics, only eleven years after arriving in the UK. The documentary also tells the story of the charity they formed, the 45Aid society. With footage of their annual reunions, the documentary gives a sense of the generations of families who all trace their British beginnings to Windermere.
WED 23:30 Life of a Mountain (m000rpmf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
WED 01:00 Arena (b0080tp3)
Desert Island Discs
First transmitted in 1982, Arena celebrates Roy Plomley's Desert Island Discs with the help of many celebrity castaways, including Frankie Howerd, Russell Harty, Trevor Brooking, the Lord Mayor of London, Professor JK Galbraith and Arthur Askey. The special guest for the 40th anniversary programme was Paul McCartney who was also a fan of the show: 'I love its homeliness. It conjures up the best in traditional British pleasure, like the great British breakfast. It's an honour to be asked'.
WED 01:50 The Joy of Painting (m000rpm6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
WED 02:15 Queen Victoria's Children (b01pp9l9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THURSDAY 28 JANUARY 2021
THU 19:00 The Diary of Anne Frank (b00gny29)
Series 1
Episode 5
Anne and her family are woken up by the sound of intruders downstairs. They creep out to the landing where they are met by Mr Dussel and the Van Daans, and they all huddle together on the stairs. When the noises seem to stop, Otto and Peter go downstairs to see what damage has been done and to lock the front door so as not to attract the police, but they discover that the burglars are still there and have to flee back to the annex before they are discovered. The families now hide together in the Frank's bedroom. Mrs Van Daan is desperate to go to the toilet but they can't risk her being heard moving, so she is forced to use a wastebasket in front of everyone.
The next morning Mr Kugler informs them that the burglars took a lot of valuables and that they must be more careful, but the families don't think they were to blame for the break-in. The tension and the summer heat start to get to them and they snap at each other. Anne tries to talk to Peter about her frustrations over anti-Semitism but he isn't interested and she realises they don't have much in common.
Food shortages are getting worse, Mrs Van Daan is annoying everyone with her endless chatter, and the authorities have confiscated their beloved radio. As the bombing raids get worse, Anne takes to running up and down the annex stairs to block out the sound. But they try to keep their spirits up and are thrilled when Miep finds some butter to bake a small cake for Edith's birthday.
THU 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000jqyw)
Series 1
Soft Mountain Glow
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.
Across the 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.
In this 30-minute class, follow each of Bob Ross's masterful strokes of the paintbrush as he creates a tranquil landscape setting - almost feathery in appearance - at the base of a towering mountain.
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.
THU 20:00 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (b010y7my)
The tale of an unlikely friendship between Bruno, the son of a Nazi commandant, and Shmuel, a Jewish boy held captive in a concentration camp. Though the two are separated physically by a barbed-wire fence, their friendship grows and their lives become inescapably intertwined.
Based on the best-selling book by John Boyne.
THU 21:30 The Eichmann Show (b050d2t9)
The behind-the-scenes true life story of groundbreaking producer Milton Fruchtman and blacklisted TV director Leo Hurwitz, who, overcoming enormous obstacles, set out to capture the testimony of one of the war's most notorious Nazis, Adolf Eichmann. He is accused of executing the 'final solution' and organising the murder of six million Jews. This is the extraordinary story of how Eichmann's trial came to be televised and the team that made it happen.
Filmed at the trial in Jerusalem in 1961, the production became the world's first ever global TV documentary series, where, for the first time, the horror of the camps was heard directly from the mouths of its victims. It was edited daily and broadcast in Germany, America, Israel and 34 other countries. People fainted when they saw it on TV. Never before had there been such drama in the use of cameras, their positioning or the revolutionary effect of operators being able to adjust frame and position to match subject and content.
THU 23:00 Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema (m000rpkv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
THU 00:00 Scandal & Beauty: Mark Gatiss on Aubrey Beardsley (m000gx0d)
Mark Gatiss explores the life and career of Aubrey Beardsley, an artist who wielded outrage as adroitly as his pen. A lifelong fan, Mark shows how Beardsley was more than just a genius of self-promotion who scandalised the art world of the 1890s. He was also a technological innovator, whose uncompromising attitude still feels remarkably modern.
The programme follows Beardsley’s fevered footsteps from his childhood in Brighton, via notoriety among the decadents of London’s fin de siècle, to his early death in France in 1898 at the age of just 25. Mark argues that the key to understanding this elusive artist is his childhood diagnosis of tuberculosis. The knowledge that he was likely to die young created a prodigious work ethic. Throughout his astonishing but brief artistic career, Beardsley constantly adopted new styles - sometimes reinventing himself every few months.
Contributors to the programme include Stephen Fry, who discusses Beardsley’s illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s banned play Salome, and the illustrator Chris Riddell, who explains the influence of Japanese woodblock prints on Beardsley’s work. Leading scholar and programme consultant Stephen Calloway explains how the new technology of zinc line blocks allowed the artist to use mass reproduction as a tool for publicising his own – increasingly infamous - brand.
Caught up in the fallout of the Wilde scandal, and in failing health, Beardsley’s career took a downturn. But adversity only made him more uncompromising. This was when he created his most unforgettable - and sexually charged – images for a privately published edition of Aristophanes’s Lysistrata, as well as a remarkable depiction of himself as an androgynous dandy. Is it possible that his limited life expectancy freed Beardsley from the conventional late Victorian expectations of masculinity?
THU 01:00 The Joy of Painting (m000jqyw)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 01:30 Handmade in Mexico (b09jj0k2)
Series 1
Alebrijes
Alebrijes are brightly coloured, fantastical creatures, carved from copal wood and decorated in extremely detailed paintwork. Different animals and their characteristics are associated with different birth dates, and the patterns are full of symbols and meaning. Consequently, the sculpture contains often complex and personal narratives.
THU 02:00 Life of a Mountain (m000rpmf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2021
FRI 19:00 Sound of Musicals with Neil Brand (b088t0kj)
Something's Coming
Neil Brand explores how a new generation of composers transformed musical theatre by embracing more gritty, challenging subjects, from the mean streets of 1950s New York in West Side Story, to the Dickensian London of British blockbuster Oliver!. Neil learns the stories behind Broadway hits Fiddler on the Roof and A Chorus Line, and celebrates the groundbreaking work of Stephen Sondheim. And Neil takes us step by step through the secrets of some classic numbers with the help of star performers Robert Lindsay and Frances Ruffelle.
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 (m000rpmn)
Mark Goodier presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 19 July 1990 and featuring Paul Young, Inspiral Carpets and Dream Warriors.
FRI 21:30 Top of the Pops (m000rpmq)
Jakki Brambles presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 26 July 1990 and featuring Blue Pearl, The Soup Dragons and Paula Abdul.
FRI 22:00 Hip Hop: The Songs That Shook America (m000rpms)
Series 1
Jesus Walks, by Kanye West
Documentary series that focuses, in each episode, on a groundbreaking hip-hop song pivotal to the evolution of American music and culture.
From the early hip-hop battles to verses that sparked hope and inspired change, watch artists deconstruct their composition, revisit the impact the song had on them personally and dissect the socio-economic and cultural conditions that inspired each landmark work and gave voice to a generation.
The first episode features Kanye West's Christian rap song Jesus Walks, which challenged the Church and changed ideals about religion and rap music.
FRI 22:40 Hip Hop: The Songs That Shook America (m000rpmx)
Series 1
Alright, by Kendrick Lamar
Making protest music in the era of Black Lives Matter, Alright becomes the unsaid anthem for hope.
FRI 23:25 Hip Hop at the BBC (b017zrm5)
Hip-hop through the decades from the BBC archives, including the Sugarhill Gang in 1979, Run DMC, LL Cool J and Eric B & Rakim in the 80s, Ice-T, Monie Love, Fugees and the Roots in the 90s and concluding with Dr Dre & Eminem, Dizzee Rascal and Jay-Z.
FRI 00:25 Hits, Hype & Hustle: An Insider's Guide to the Music Business (b09mbfjx)
Series 1
Making a Star
In the first programme of the series, music agent Emma Banks looks at how the music business finds talent and creates superstars.
Over 25 years as one of the top agents in the business, Emma has worked with some of the world's most famous artists, including Katy Perry, Kanye West and Red Hot Chili Peppers. She's seen first-hand the fine line between success and failure, following the careers of hundreds of acts - from geniuses who never quite made it to megastars who conquered the world.
The secret to success and stardom is an elusive formula of luck, timing and of course talent. But as Emma explores in this film, it's also about the team behind the talent - the record execs, label bosses and A&R gurus who find, develop and make a star. From Motown's musical finishing school to Damon Dash's dogged promotion of Jay-Z, the missed potential of sixties group The Zombies to Blur's record label steering their career from one-hit wonders towards chart domination, this film offers an entertaining behind-the-scenes peek into the peaks and pitfalls of making a musical superstar.
Contributors include Motown's Martha Reeves, Blur's Alex James, record producing legend Clive Davis, Jane's Addiction's Perry Farrell and Labelle's Nona Hendryx. And we follow Emma as she works with new grime star Lady Leshurr to take her career to the next level.
FRI 01:25 Cilla at the BBC (b067543w)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
FRI 02:25 Sound of Musicals with Neil Brand (b088t0kj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)
Arena
01:00 WED (b0080tp3)
Australian Hits at the BBC
23:30 MON (m000mts7)
Cilla at the BBC
20:00 FRI (b067543w)
Cilla at the BBC
01:25 FRI (b067543w)
Full Steam Ahead
20:00 SAT (b07lpm6c)
Full Steam Ahead
02:45 SAT (b07lpm6c)
Handmade in Mexico
01:30 THU (b09jj0k2)
Hip Hop at the BBC
23:25 FRI (b017zrm5)
Hip Hop: The Songs That Shook America
22:00 FRI (m000rpms)
Hip Hop: The Songs That Shook America
22:40 FRI (m000rpmx)
Hits, Hype & Hustle: An Insider's Guide to the Music Business
00:25 FRI (b09mbfjx)
Inside Obama's White House
20:00 TUE (b076z4yp)
Inside Obama's White House
02:40 TUE (b076z4yp)
Ireland to Sydney By Any Means
21:00 SUN (b00dls64)
Ireland to Sydney By Any Means
02:30 SUN (b00dls64)
Life of a Mountain
21:00 TUE (m000rpmf)
Life of a Mountain
23:30 WED (m000rpmf)
Life of a Mountain
02:00 THU (m000rpmf)
Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema
21:00 MON (m000rpkv)
Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema
01:30 MON (m000rpkv)
Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema
23:00 THU (m000rpkv)
Mountain
22:30 TUE (b0b1xs2d)
Mountain
01:40 TUE (b0b1xs2d)
Paris
22:45 SAT (b007rtt7)
Queen Victoria's Children
20:00 WED (b01pp9l9)
Queen Victoria's Children
02:15 WED (b01pp9l9)
Rome: A History of the Eternal City
00:30 SUN (b01p65l8)
Sahara with Michael Palin
19:00 SAT (b0074p5v)
Sahara with Michael Palin
01:45 SAT (b0074p5v)
Scandal & Beauty: Mark Gatiss on Aubrey Beardsley
00:00 THU (m000gx0d)
Score: Cinema's Greatest Soundtracks
22:00 MON (m0002pf6)
Secret Knowledge
19:30 SUN (b01rml7t)
Secrets of the Museum
20:00 MON (m000fjg5)
Secrets of the Museum
02:30 MON (m000fjg5)
Sound of Musicals with Neil Brand
19:00 FRI (b088t0kj)
Sound of Musicals with Neil Brand
02:25 FRI (b088t0kj)
Spiral
21:00 SAT (p091v6z9)
Spiral
21:55 SAT (p091v6zc)
Spiral
23:30 TUE (p091v6z9)
Spiral
00:25 TUE (p091v6zc)
Storyville
22:00 SUN (b09gljns)
Synth & Beyond with Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert
00:45 SAT (b0bnk6vc)
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
20:00 THU (b010y7my)
The Diary of Anne Frank
19:00 SUN (b00gndt1)
The Diary of Anne Frank
19:00 MON (b00gn81c)
The Diary of Anne Frank
19:00 TUE (b00gnv10)
The Diary of Anne Frank
19:00 WED (b00gnws1)
The Diary of Anne Frank
19:00 THU (b00gny29)
The Eichmann Show
21:30 THU (b050d2t9)
The Joy of Painting
19:30 MON (m000rpks)
The Joy of Painting
01:00 MON (m000rpks)
The Joy of Painting
19:30 TUE (m000rpp1)
The Joy of Painting
01:15 TUE (m000rpp1)
The Joy of Painting
19:30 WED (m000rpm6)
The Joy of Painting
01:50 WED (m000rpm6)
The Joy of Painting
19:30 THU (m000jqyw)
The Joy of Painting
01:00 THU (m000jqyw)
The Victorian Slum
20:00 SUN (b0812m7y)
The Victorian Slum
01:30 SUN (b0812m7y)
The Windermere Children: In Their Own Words
22:30 WED (m000dt7g)
The Windermere Children
21:00 WED (m000dtcz)
Top of the Pops
23:45 SAT (m000rgm4)
Top of the Pops
00:15 SAT (m000rgm6)
Top of the Pops
00:30 MON (m000kxky)
Top of the Pops
21:00 FRI (m000rpmn)
Top of the Pops
21:30 FRI (m000rpmq)
Victorian Sensations
23:30 SUN (m0005pr9)