SATURDAY 31 DECEMBER 2022

SAT 19:00 Natural World (b01nmdh3)
2012-2013

A Wolf Called Storm

Storm is an extraordinary wolf - the head of a pack in Canada's frozen north that hunts the giant buffalo herds. This pack came to fame in Frozen Planet, and now cameraman Jeff Turner spends a year with Storm and his wolf family, learning how they survive in this harsh wilderness and whether Storm can pass his hunting skills on to the new generation of wolf cubs.


SAT 19:45 Sondheim at the BBC (m0012txl)
A celebration of the work of one of the great songwriters and lyricists, Stephen Sondheim, who passed away in November 2021 at the age of 91. A giant of musical theatre, Sondheim first found international fame in 1957 as the lyricist for Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story and would inspire generations from that moment on.

This selection includes some of Sondheim’s finest songs, broadcast on the BBC over a period of 60 years, with performances from a cast of his friends and fans that features some of the biggest names of stage and screen, including Shirley Bassey, Sammy Davis Jr, Michael Ball and Liza Minnelli.


SAT 21:15 The Full Monty (b015576w)
Blockbuster comedy about a group of unemployed Sheffield steelworkers who turn to stripping to try to escape the poverty trap into which they have fallen.


SAT 22:40 Stan & Ollie (m000sdz8)
Once the world's most famous comedy double act, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy reunite for a variety hall tour of Britain in 1953. As they set out on their demanding schedule, with their wives back home in the US, Stan is distracted by his attempts to pin down the producer of their proposed comeback film and Ollie tries to heal a rift caused by a perceived professional betrayal.


SAT 00:15 Peaky Blinders (m0015041)
Series 6

Black Day

Tommy sets off to North America, where the end of Prohibition brings new opportunities. But he faces new danger from an old adversary who is finally making his move.


SAT 01:15 Peaky Blinders (m00156p5)
Series 6

Black Shirt

Tommy gets involved in a power game with fascists, freedom fighters and Boston gangsters. As the players plan to double-cross him, Tommy visits an old ally in Camden.


SAT 02:15 Peaky Blinders (m0015ffr)
Series 6

Gold

Faced with devastating news, Tommy goes on a quest to discover who placed a curse on his family. In Birmingham, Ada takes charge, and Arthur takes on some new recruits.

SUNDAY 01 JANUARY 2023

SUN 19:00 Come Dancing (m001gn5c)
1979

Episode 1

Terry Wogan introduces the inter-regional amateur dance contest from Cheltenham Town Hall, featuring The Midlands and West v Home Counties North. Ray Moore commentates on latin, ballroom, old time, formation, and – in a Come Dancing first for 1979 – disco.

This edition of the show includes a performance by the parents of two dancers who are well-known members of the Strictly Come Dancing family.


SUN 19:45 Coast (b08bldqw)
Series 8 Reversions

The Workers' Coast 2

Nick Crane visits an abandoned refrigeration plant whose workers kept Britain's biggest fishing fleet afloat. Tessa Dunlop reveals the untold story of the Royal Navy's sea power.


SUN 20:00 New Year's Day Concert (m001gn5f)
2023 - Highlights

Petroc Trelawny presents highlights of the 2023 New Year’s Day Concert from the Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna. Franz Welser-Möst conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in the traditional feast of waltzes and polkas composed by the Strauss family and their contemporaries, culminating in the timeless By the Beautiful Blue Danube and Radetzky March.


SUN 22:00 BBC Proms (b08ympvh)
2017

John Williams Film Prom

The BBC Proms celebrates the 85th birthday of the world's favourite film composer, John Williams. The BBC Concert Orchestra and conductor Keith Lockhart perform some of the best-loved music in cinema history, including movie magic from Star Wars, Harry Potter, ET and Indiana Jones as well as lesser-known gems from John Williams's extraordinary back catalogue. Presented by Katie Derham.


SUN 00:00 Front Row Late (m0002fsr)
Series 4

When Mary Beard Met Philip Pullman

In a wide-ranging conversation, Pullman talks to Mary Beard about his love of language, rhythm and myth, his fears for the loss of civic decency in Britain, and, as a former teacher, his opinions on the contemporary education system.

Pullman also reveals that achieving success later in life is preferable to early stardom and discusses relinquishing his work to screenwriters for adaptations for the big and small screen.


SUN 00:40 Peaky Blinders (m0015p1x)
Series 6

Sapphire

Tommy establishes a connection between crime and political power that could alter the course of history. He also receives life-changing news from an unexpected source.


SUN 01:40 Peaky Blinders (m0015xjg)
Series 6

The Road to Hell

In the light of extraordinary personal revelations, Tommy takes a course of action that will change everything. Meanwhile, his enemies’ plans start to fall into place.


SUN 02:40 Peaky Blinders (m00164dc)
Series 6

Lock and Key

A war veteran who fought in the trenches, Tommy Shelby has been a gangster, an entrepreneur, a captain of industry, a spy and ultimately a Member of Parliament. In the course of this odyssey, he has taken on numerous criminal organisations, business adversaries, foreign insurgents and the British Establishment itself.

Now, in the 1930s, as the clouds of the coming storm gather, he faces the consequences of his experiences and his actions.

MONDAY 02 JANUARY 2023

MON 19:00 Great Continental Railway Journeys (m000xb9s)
Series 7 (Shortened Versions)

Episode 8

Michael continues his railway journey from Sicily’s capital, Palermo, through the ancient town of Agrigento and the port of Siracusa to Europe’s largest volcano, Mount Etna. Michael explores Sicilian life under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini.

From Agrigento he heads inland to Enna and the picturesque but remote village of Gangi. There he seeks the protection of a local historian as he traces the story behind this notorious mafia hideout of the 1930s.

Michael takes the helm to explore the port of Siracusa by boat and enjoys a sumptuous picnic of Sicilian specialities before visiting a controversial monument, which depicts a dark chapter in Italian history. Michael concludes his Sicilian journey on the circular railway around Mount Etna, aboard the sleek, futurist-inspired train inaugurated by Mussolini in 1937, La Littorina.


MON 19:30 Winter Walks (m000qd6r)
Series 1

Simon Armitage

A coastal walk is the setting for Poet Laureate Simon Armitage's ramble along Yorkshire’s enchanting and historic frontier with the North Sea.

Starting in Ravenscar, Simon Armitage takes the old Cinder Track - a disused railway line. Carrying a 360-degree camera, he passes former quarries and brickworks before taking a beach walk from Boggle Hole to the picture-perfect Robin Hood’s Bay.

Simon witnesses at first hand the impact of coastal erosion and meets farmers and locals living and working by the sea. He ends his journey with a seaside pint of local ale.

Filmed in January 2020 before Covid restrictions were introduced.


MON 20:00 Vienna: Empire, Dynasty and Dream (p046dxfw)
Episode 1

Vienna was the capital of the Habsburg dynasty and home to the Holy Roman Emperors. From here, they dominated middle Europe for nearly 1,000 years. In this series, historian Simon Sebag Montefiore describes how the Habsburgs transformed Vienna into a multinational city of music, culture and ideas. Napoleon, Hitler, Mozart, Strauss, Freud, Stalin and Klimt all played their part.

In this first episode, we follow the Habsburgs' rise to power and discover how Vienna marked Europe's front line in the struggle to defend both Christendom from the Ottomans and the Catholic Church from the Protestant revolutionaries that plotted to destroy it.


MON 21:00 Britain's Lost Masterpieces (b0bg5t91)
Series 3

Devon

In Knightshayes Court Devon the team are examining a work that is a copy of a Rembrandt. But, might it be the real thing, a genuine self-portrait?

Bendor discovers a small portrait of Rembrandt in the collection of a National Trust house, Knightshayes Court in Tiverton, Devon. The painting is thought to be a later copy of a self-portrait by Rembrandt now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, but Bendor believes it is in fact a study for the finished picture by Rembrandt himself. There is a third version in a collection in Germany that was always thought to be the original until the Amsterdam version was found in a Glasgow attic in 1959.

The picture is sent to be restored and have a later background overpaint removed while Bendor sets out to see all three versions and in the process visits the world-expert on Rembrandt, Ernst van de Wettering, in Amsterdam. But Ernst is not persuaded by the painting. Bendor decides to try and use scientific investigation to prove the portrait is not a later copy.

Emma explores the history of the house and its eccentric opium smoking Victorian Gothic architect, William Burges. She investigates the history of the lace factory in the town of Tiverton on which the family fortune was based, and tries her hand at golf, as the last family member in the house was British Ladies Golf Champion five times in the 1920s.


MON 22:00 Michael Jayston Remembers... Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (m001gn4z)
Michael Jayston played George Smiley’s right-hand man Peter Guillam in the BBC’s acclaimed 1979 adaptation of John le Carré’s classic spy tale.

As part of the BBC’s Centenary of Drama, and over four decades on, Michael now looks back on the experience, recalling what it was like working on what is still considered one of the best television series ever made, and how he held his own acting alongside one of the finest acting talents of the 20th century, the great Sir Alec Guinness.


MON 22:10 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (b0074tdz)
Series 1

Return to the Circus

Was George Smiley sacked after a scandal or is he merely retired? When he is summoned by the cabinet watchdog for intelligence affairs, Smiley agrees to head the hunt for a secret service mole.


MON 23:00 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (b0074tg0)
Series 1

Tarr Tells His Story

Acclaimed adaptation of John le Carre's novel. Smiley is forced to go back over some very old ground when he is told a story about spies.


MON 23:50 Ireland to Sydney by Any Means (b00dhbf2)
Episode 1

Gritty adventurer Charley Boorman goes on one of his most daring journeys, covering three continents, 25 countries and over 20,000 miles from Ireland to Australia.

Charley gets off his bike and on to local means of transport, avoiding commercial airlines wherever possible to travel over land and sea on more than 100 different modes of transport, including container ships, dug-out canoes, solar cars and an elephant.

In the first episode, preparations are underway as Charley plans the three-month expedition. A few knock-backs, several training courses and some minor route alterations later, the three team members - Charley, producer Russ and cameraman Mungo - are ready. Starting from Charley's home in County Wicklow in Ireland, the trio rev the engines of three classic bikes before heading northwards for the shores of Kilkeel and the start of their adventure.


MON 00:50 Hope Street (p0ddgkyz)
Series 2

Episode 6

Sparks fly when Marlene meets an outspoken farmer who hates the police. Meanwhile, a stressed-out Finn is pushed to breaking point.


MON 01:35 Great Continental Railway Journeys (m000xb9s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 02:05 Winter Walks (m000qd6r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 02:35 Vienna: Empire, Dynasty and Dream (p046dxfw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

TUESDAY 03 JANUARY 2023

TUE 19:00 Great Continental Railway Journeys (m000x9qb)
Series 7 (Shortened Versions)

Episode 9

Michael Portillo embarks on a scenic thousand-mile rail journey from the Swedish capital, Stockholm, to Abisko in the northern reaches of the Arctic Circle, steered by his 1936 edition of Bradshaw’s Continental Railway Guide.

In Stockholm, Michael braves a precarious tour of the city from its rooftops, before boarding a heritage tram to get the lowdown on 1930s Sweden from an expert.

At the capital’s Royal Institute of Technology, Michael investigates transport of the future in a near vacuum tube. In Uppsala, he tours the historic university before boarding an exquisite steam train to Marielund, where he celebrates midsummer in true Abba style. He samples the best of Swedish fika and takes an icy dip one of the country’s 96,000 lakes.


TUE 19:30 Great Continental Railway Journeys (m000xhbx)
Series 7 (Shortened Versions)

Episode 10

Michael Portillo continues his scenic thousand-mile rail journey from the Swedish capital, Stockholm, to Abisko in the northern reaches of the Arctic Circle, steered by his 1936 edition of Bradshaw’s Continental Railway Guide.
Heading north away from the cities aboard Sweden’s 1,300 km Inlandsbanan Railway, completed in 1937, Michael discovers why Sweden built this strategic inland line. In Mora he learns to decorate a Dala horse; in Östersund he learns how the nation created a welfare state. He joins traditional Sami people for lunch in Vilhelmina and checks into a chilly hotel in Kiruna, made from ice. He finishes deep in the Arctic Circle at a research station, where scientists are building on data recorded at the time his guidebook was published.


TUE 20:00 To the Manor Born (p04bsv48)
Series 3

Station Closing

British Rail decides to close down the local station and Audrey goes into battle.


TUE 20:30 Sykes (m001gqlw)
Series 3

A Bandage

Eric is left looking like a mummy when Hattie practises her first-aid skills. One of the consequences is that he can't get to make the final payment on his motorcycle.


TUE 21:00 Hattie (b00xllyq)
Ruth Jones takes on the role of the larger-than-life Carry On actress Hattie Jacques, revealing how her home life was blown apart by a secret sexual liaison with her handsome young driver while she was married to Dad's Army star John Le Mesurier.


TUE 22:25 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (b0074th6)
Series 1

Smiley Tracks the Mole

Acclaimed adaptation of John le Carre's novel. In his search for the mole sitting at the heart of the Circus, Smiley sets out for Oxford to visit an invaluable friend.


TUE 23:15 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (b0074tjf)
Series 1

How It All Fits Together

Smiley recalls the past - his involvement with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Poorman, and Karla - the legendary head of Moscow Circus.


TUE 00:00 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.


TUE 01:00 Great Continental Railway Journeys (m000x9qb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


TUE 01:30 Natural World (b01nmdh3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


TUE 02:15 Hattie (b00xllyq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

WEDNESDAY 04 JANUARY 2023

WED 19:00 London to Brighton Side by Side (b00f2zxt)
In 1953, the BBC made a point-of-view film from the London to Brighton train. In 1983, they did the same again. This is a film made of both runs at once, with every bridge, siding, tunnel and station running side by side in unlikely synchronisation.


WED 19:05 Great Indian Railway Journeys (b09x4pvh)
Series 1

Amritsar to Shimla

Guided by his Bradshaw's 1913 Handbook of Indian, Foreign and Colonial Travel, Michael Portillo travels across India. He embarks on a classic rail journey from Amritsar to Shimla. Along the way, he helps to feed the thousands at the world's largest free kitchen and travels the railway routes used by millions of migrants partition. He gives his trademark colourful wardrobe an Indian twist and reaches the foothills of the Himalayas, where the epic Kalka to Shimla hill railway carries him to the former summer seat of the British rulers of the Raj.

Published when the British Raj was at its height, Michael's guide leads him to some of the key locations in India's 20th-century story, from the massacre in Amritsar in 1919 to the bloody events of partition.

Beginning in the Sikh holy city, Michael is dazzled by the beauty of the Golden Temple and awed by the scale of its langar - the world's largest free kitchen.

His route then takes him through the Punjab, India's breadbasket. Michael samples traditional chapattis, has a colourful kurta made up in one of the Punjab's biggest cloth markets, and can't resist the foot-tapping rhythms of Punjabi bhangra dancing, made famous by Bollywood. Portillo's journey also reveals surprises. He uncovers a pioneering women's medical college in Ludhiana, before plunging into Chandigarh, designed by Le Corbusier as a modernist expression of India's post-independence future.

At Kalka, Michael glimpses the Himalayas for the first time and joins the 1906-built mountain railway for a stunning climb to Shimla. There, he relives the days when the creme de la creme of expatriate society went to socialise and rule - their exploits recorded by a young Rudyard Kipling.


WED 20:05 Lucy Worsley's Royal Palace Secrets (m000qznd)
Historian Lucy Worsley takes us behind closed doors at three treasure-filled royal palaces to uncover how each building has shaped a monarchy and a nation.

With exclusive access to the palaces’ most secret places, she uncovers the dramatic events that changed the course of British history, from might and intimidation at the Tower of London and the rise and fall of absolute monarchy at Hampton Court to the modern face of royalty at Kensington Palace.


WED 21:00 Shackleton's Cabin (m001grr7)
On 5 January 1922, world-famous Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton died of a heart attack in his cabin aboard The Quest during his final expedition to the South Pole. Moored in Norway, The Quest was broken apart. However, one of the dockers had the foresight to remove Shackleton’s cabin. He took it home and it served as his family’s garden shed for three generations.

Nearly 100 years after Shackleton’s death, the cabin has been donated to a museum in the explorer’s hometown, where master craftsman and Shackleton enthusiast Sven Habermann painstakingly restores it to its former glory. With only one surviving photograph of the cabin’s interior, Sven goes to extreme lengths to retrace every detail, from the wood to the original wallpaper used. Shackleton’s Cabin follows Sven as he rebuilds the cabin and explores the life and final days of his hero.


WED 21:55 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (b0074tks)
Series 1

Tinker Tailor

Smiley thinks that the time has come to call on Jim Prideaux, whose assignment to Czechoslovakia went disastrously wrong, with the mole at the heart of the Circus to blame.


WED 22:40 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (b0074tlq)
Series 1

Smiley Sets a Trap

Acclaimed dramatisation of John le Carre's novel. Smiley's investigation to snare the traitor at the heart of the Circus leads him to Jerry Westerby, a Fleet Street journalist.


WED 23:20 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (b0074tmm)
Series 1

Flushing Out the Mole

In the final part of John le Carre's classic story, George Smiley's search for the mole at the heart of the Circus finally comes to an end.


WED 00:05 Ireland to Sydney by Any Means (b00dqdly)
Episode 3

Charley and the team are separated from Dubai by the Persian Gulf, where a scheduled container ship will depart for India in a matter of days. Despite encountering pirate-infested waters, they reach India, where the team head straight for the streets of Mumbai to soak up the colours, smells and flavours. Before them is a journey on a cramped sleeper train to reach India's capital, Delhi.

Disaster strikes as one of the team gets seriously injured and has to drop out, with an emotional goodbye and a return to London for medical attention.

One man down but determined the expedition will continue, the team reach Varanasi, the holy town on the banks of the sacred river Ganges. Charley watches a traditional Arti ceremony and reflects on how much he is drawn to the incredible and varied country, and how much he is looking forward to the other wonderful places that lie ahead.


WED 01:05 Great Indian Railway Journeys (b09x4pvh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:05 today]


WED 02:05 Britain's Lost Masterpieces (b0bg5t91)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]

THURSDAY 05 JANUARY 2023

THU 19:00 Great Indian Railway Journeys (b09xt8dk)
Series 1

Jodhpur to Delhi

Bradshaw's 1913 Handbook of Indian, Foreign and Colonial Travel in hand, Michael embarks on a stunning rail journey from the Thar Desert in Rajasthan to the Indian capital, taking in desert landscapes and dazzling historic palaces.

From Jodhpur, Michael strikes out into the desert, taking a camel ride to a village where life has changed little in centuries, before embarking on the Jaipur-Agra-Delhi 'Golden Triangle' tour - India's must-do itinerary in 1913 as today. In Jaipur, Michael enjoys a gin and tonic in a lavish former palace before learning about the close ties between the rajahs of Jaipur and British royalty. He takes a polo masterclass from a maharaja and enjoys a shower with a difference, courtesy of an elephant.

Continuing east, Michael breaks his journey in drought-prone Bandikui, where he marvels at the extraordinary architecture of one of India's largest and deepest step wells. In Agra, Michael first glimpses the Taj Mahal from a luxurious hotel room with a view. Heading for a closer look, he learns how this romantic monument built by a Mughal emperor was restored by a British viceroy at the time of his Bradshaw's guide book. Having pre-ordered an on-train lunch using a mobile app, Michael joins the crowds in 'unreserved class' en route to Delhi, where he samples street food in Chandni Chowk before boarding the sparkling new metro towards New Delhi.

Journey's end is at New Delhi, built to house the rulers of the Raj after the capital moved from Calcutta in 1911 and designed by British architect Edwin Lutyens. But even as the crowds cheered King George V at the Delhi Durbar held the same year, anti-British sentiment was growing and soon after New Delhi was complete, India was granted independence.


THU 20:00 Wild China (b00bybp3)
Tides of Change

Documentary series featuring pioneering images that capture the dazzling array of mysterious and wonderful creatures populating China's most beautiful landscapes.

Ancient tea-growing cultures, traditional seaweed-thatched villages, bird-filled wetlands, rare white dolphins, snake-infested islands and futuristic cities jostle along China's fertile eastern seaboard, which marks the front line in the scramble for resources and space between 700 million people and a surprising wealth of wildlife.


THU 21:00 The Shawshank Redemption (m001gn6f)
Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency.


THU 23:15 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b0074t54)
Stephen King

Horror writer Stephen King talks to Mark Lawson about his life and work.


THU 00:15 Ireland to Sydney by Any Means (b00dtx93)
Episode 4

Epic journey series, using as many forms of transport as possible.

After a spiritually enriching time in India it's time to head north towards Nepal. The next leg of the journey starts on tuk tuks, one of Boorman's favourite modes of transport. Charley and the team enjoy it so much that they decide to buy one.

Leaving the chaos of the streets, Charley boards a train at Varanasi and is met at Gorakhpur by a tremendous downpour of rain. The team have an easy border crossing and find themselves in the comparatively peaceful land of Nepal, where they take a tractor, a multicoloured local bus and a dugout canoe all the way to the Royal Chitwan National Park.

Charley bonds with an elephant that takes him through remote Nepali villages, before transferring to jeep and travelling over deep valleys and Indiana Jones-style suspension bridges.

Meanwhile in Kathmandu, the King is deposed, and the atmosphere in Nepal's capital is electric as it becomes a republic. Here the team seize the opportunity to go to Everest by helicopter on the 55th anniversary of a mountaineering conquest: the summit of the world's highest mountain.

Eventually making it into China, Charley and the team travel along the Xi Jiang River to Wuzhou on a cement barge. Now running behind schedule due to the swelling of the river, Charley hurries to Yangshuo to see the breathtaking scenery of limestone cliffs, and to ride over this remote and captivating part of the world in a hot air balloon.


THU 01:15 Great Indian Railway Journeys (b09xt8dk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


THU 02:15 Lucy Worsley's Royal Palace Secrets (m000qznd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:05 on Wednesday]

FRIDAY 06 JANUARY 2023

FRI 19:00 Top of the Pops (m001grs9)
Smashie and Nicey's TOTP Party

Originally broadcast on 4 January 1994, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's DJ alter egos, Smashie and Nicey, present Top of the Pops in a 30th anniversary celebration of the show.

Three poptastic decades surrender their fab sounds, hits, clothes and haircuts for our nostalgic enjoyment, from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones to Take That and Madonna.


FRI 19:50 Top of the Pops (b09lv80h)
John Peel and Richard Skinner present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 3 January 1985. Featuring Smiley Culture, Sal Solo, Paul Young, Tears for Fears, Toy Dolls, Madonna and Band Aid.


FRI 20:30 Top of the Pops (b03pcjh8)
Weekly pop chart programme presented by Mike Read. Featuring Generation X, Elton John, Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Olivia Newton-John, Racey, Barry White, Brotherhood of Man, Village People and a dance sequence by Legs & Co.


FRI 21:00 Bowie at the BBC (b0888f7r)
A chronology of clips from the BBC archive giving an overview of David Bowie's extraordinary career from 1964 to 2016. Blending interviews and performances from music programmes, documentaries, news outlets and chat shows, this portrait of Bowie both at his most thoughtful and his most opportunistically promotional is a series of snapshots into a rapidly evolving career across music, films and the theatre.

From a 17-year-old David Jones interviewed by Cliff Michelmore in 1964, on to 1973 when in Ziggy mode Bowie, Ronson and co gave their seminal Top of the Pops performance of Starman, and then to 2000 when Bowie reimagined himself as the cover of Hunky Dory to storm Glastonbury, this is a journey through many Bowies.

The programme includes other classic Top of the Pops, The Old Grey Whistle Test and Later... with Jools' performances and looks at Bowie the actor with interviews about his roles in The Elephant Man, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and Labyrinth.

Bowie at the BBC gives an insight into the many ways Bowie chose to present himself at different moments in time, revealing how innovative, funny, surprising and influential he always was.


FRI 22:00 David Bowie: Finding Fame (m0002jlw)
This is the David Bowie story you don’t know. The story of how David Robert Jones became David Bowie, how David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust and how Ziggy became immortal, changing the musical landscape as he did so. The story that finally makes sense of one of the greatest icons of the 20th and 21st centuries. Part three of Francis Whately’s Bowie trilogy.


FRI 23:35 Top of the Pops (m001grs9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


FRI 00:25 Top of the Pops (b09lv80h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:50 today]


FRI 01:05 Top of the Pops (b03pcjh8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


FRI 01:35 David Bowie: Finding Fame (m0002jlw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]