SATURDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2023

SAT 19:00 Arctic with Bruce Parry (b00ylx9f)
Northern Europe

The final stage of Bruce Parry's six-month journey is through Arctic Europe. He travels to a remote Russian village, deep within the vast Boreal forest that stretches for thousands of miles across the top of the world. Life here has changed little for hundreds of years, and people still depend on the food they gather from the woods that surround them.

Bruce then travels north into Norway, where he lives with the Saami, reindeer herders who use snow machines, boats and even helicopters to move their animals.

Bruce's last stop is a remote scientific community in the Svalbard archipelago, where he learns about the fragility of Arctic ecosystem. As the long winter night draws in, Bruce is treated to an iconic Arctic spectacle as the aurora borealis light up the night sky.


SAT 20:00 Simon King's Shetland Adventure (b00qsc2h)
Episode 2

Simon King, wildlife cameraman and Springwatch presenter, sets off on an adventure to the Shetland Islands to live there with his family through the changing seasons. Simon has travelled the world for 30 years, but his boyhood dream was always to visit Shetland. And now he has the chance to try to capture some of the remarkable wildlife and experience the beauty and the wild weather of Britain's most northerly isles.

Spring arrives in Shetland, bringing with it an influx of wildlife from all over the world. Simon dives in the sea and discovers starfish, dead man's fingers and moon jellyfish. He also gets very close to a seal.

Simon follows the heartrending struggle at a wildlife sanctuary to teach Kirikoo, an injured baby otter, to use her back legs.

And with a little help and hindrance from his two-year-old daughter Savannah, he sets up a hide and gives her a lesson in birdwatching.


SAT 21:00 North Sea Connection (p0dyrrk6)
Series 1

Breaking Waves

Aidan's business plans are compromised by Lenny, with devastating consequences. Tuva investigates possible drug smuggling and suspicions about Bjorn.


SAT 21:45 North Sea Connection (p0dyrw4k)
Series 1

Cold Front

Hana makes a shocking discovery. Aidan and Ciara are given new orders, which entangle them further with the cartel. Tuva startles Bjorn with information about his past in Sweden.


SAT 22:30 Early Doors (b0078shw)
Series 2

Episode 5

Ken smartens himself up to play the romantic lead whilst rumours of him throwing the towel in at the pub spread amongst the locals.

Duffy plays down his recent good fortune and his life gets back on track, but a heart to heart with Joe highlights a personal problem in Joe's private life.

Jean's sleepwalking appears to be getting worse and Joan looks doomed to fail her driving test.


SAT 23:00 Early Doors (b0078sly)
Series 2

Episode 6

Comedy series set in a small Manchester public house.

Mel's 21st has arrived and the regulars look forward to a free buffet. Joe discovers the perks of being a DJ as Nicola uses her assets to attract his attention, and Phil and Nige take the opportunity to try out their new business venture.

Jean wonders if she will ever get the chance of a nice semi-detached with conservatory, and Ken makes the decision they've all been waiting for.


SAT 23:30 To the Manor Born (b0078986)
Series 3

Back to the Manor

Stately sitcom. Audrey's hopes of regaining her position as lady of the manor look like being dashed when Richard's business crisis forces him to sell up.


SAT 00:00 The Many Faces of... (b00wylqq)
Series 1

Alison Steadman

A documentary in which Alison Steadman talks about her impressive career, featuring archive clips, both treasured and rarely seen, weaved together with sincere testimony from friends and colleagues.

The programme contains footage and stills from programmes such as Gavin and Stacey, Abigail's Party, Newshounds, Nuts in May and her early appearances in Frost's Weekly. It progresses from her earliest appearances on screen to what drove her choices, for good or ill, and their consequences.


SAT 01:00 Rich Hall's Working for the American Dream (b0b8rc45)
Award-winning comedian Rich Hall explores the American dream and the dictum that came over with the very first pilgrims who set foot on Plymouth Rock - work hard and you will succeed.

With his sharp wit and acerbic insight, Rich looks at how Americans strive to achieve this dream and how it's been explored and perpetuated by politicians, industrialists, artists, writers and film-makers.

Rich also looks at the dark heart of the American dream and considers what happens when the dream turns into a nightmare, including the Great Depression of the 1930s, the boom and bust of Detroit and the modern demise of America's shrinking middle class. The land of opportunity has attracted all comers to live the American dream, and Rich Hall explains if it actually exists or if it's just a myth that's become unobtainable for Americans.


SAT 02:30 Simon King's Shetland Adventure (b00qsc2h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

SUNDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2023

SUN 19:00 Come Dancing (m001j5zl)
1979

Episode 7

Terry Wogan introduces the final of the classic interregional amateur dance contest from the Guildhall, Southampton. North West dance against 1978 champions Midlands and West for the 1979 Come Dancing title. Ray Moore provides the commentary. Featuring latin, ballroom, old time, formation and disco.


SUN 19:45 Chamber Music at the BBC (b03q050v)
Paul Tortelier

Petroc Trelawny presents music performances at the BBC by charismatic French cellist Paul Tortelier, whose regular TV appearances in the 60s and 70s made him a household name. This programme includes extracts from his popular series of televised masterclasses, an early performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto and some intimate family music-making with his wife and children, including his teenage son Yan Pascal.


SUN 20:45 New Generation Artists Presents (m001j5zn)
Series 1

Episode 2

A stunning showcase of spectacular music and breathtaking virtuosity from world-class musicians who are part of BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme. In the second of two programmes, they perform music, including works by Britten, Chopin, Strauss and Purcell. Founded in 1999, the NGA scheme nurtures and supports some of the world’s most talented instrumentalists, singers and ensembles at the start of their international careers through broadcasts on radio, television and performances at some of the UK’s most prestigious festivals and venues.

German pianist Elisabeth Brauss plays Chopin’s Scherzo No 2 in B flat minor alongside three keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti. Scottish guitarist Sean Shibe performs a selection of Scottish lute music and Dowland’s Fantasia. British Soprano Ruby Hughes, who is joined by Indian-American pianist Kunal Lahiry, sings music by Strauss, Purcell and Britten, while the Aris Quartet, formed in Frankfurt, perform a selection of Ervin Schulhoff’s Five Pieces for String Quartet.

Presented by Georgia Mann from the intimate setting of The Coal Exchange in Cardiff Bay.


SUN 21:45 The Wedding (m001f2z9)
Omnibus Editions

Episode 1

A series of intertwined monologues capturing the thoughts and feelings of six very different characters at a black-and-Scottish wedding.

In this episode, Charles isn’t best pleased at being the second-best man, bartender Tem reflects on working her first black-and-Scottish wedding, and Uncle GG - aka the Gambling Uncle - hopes to regain his dignity through one final bet.


SUN 22:15 The Wedding (m001f333)
Omnibus Editions

Episode 2

Amber reflects on her mixed-race heritage, estranged sister Mary attempts to conjure up some confidence on a long-awaited return to the family, and the mother of the groom reflects on her initial preconceptions and concerns when first arriving in Scotland.


SUN 22:45 Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities (b03l7psf)
Episode 2

Series in which historian Simon Sebag Montefiore traces the sacred history of Istanbul. Known as the 'city of the world's desire', it's a place that has been the focus of passion for believers of three different faiths - Paganism, Christianity and Islam - and for nearly 3,000 years its streets have been the battleground for some of the fiercest political and religious conflicts in history.

In the second episode he explores modern Istanbul in search of the last desperate centuries of Christian Byzantium, in which the once glorious city was buffeted by enemies from both east and west and yet still produced a golden artistic renaissance. This is story of the Christian crusaders who destroyed the city, and the Ottoman Muslims who restored it to life as an imperial capital after the epic siege of 1453.


SUN 23:45 Michael Palin's New Europe (b0082h5q)
Baltic Summer

A journey through the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, from Tallinn in the north via Riga to Vilnius in the south. Michael Palin tells the story of how the three tiny nations shook themselves free of their neighbour and oppressor, the Soviet Union, reshaping their lives and reclaiming their cultures, which had been forced underground but didn't die.

Michael attends a session of hirudotherapy (leech treatment), a session of fire-walking and a frolic with revellers at the pagan festival of Jaani, crowned in a chaplet of oak-leaves. In an impromptu experiment on the streets of Vilnius, he learns why Lithuanians are known as the 'singing nation'.

The documentary ends in Kaliningrad, which was once East Prussia. Kaliningrad is a relic of World War II and one of Europe's oddities - a region of Russia surrounded by Poland and Lithuania. It is City Day, a celebration of the 60 years since the region was renamed, and whatever the politics, Michael is determined to enjoy himself before sailing around the Baltic coast to Poland.


SUN 00:45 Opera Italia (b00sm18t)
Viva Verdi

Three-part series tracing the history of Italian opera presented by Antonio Pappano, conductor and music director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The series features sumptuous music, stunning Italian locations and some of the biggest names in opera as contributors.

The second episode focuses on Verdi, whose operas are central to Pappano's conducting repertoire and the backbone of the international opera scene. It shows how Verdi's music was influenced by composers such as Bellini and particularly Donizetti, whose gothic masterpiece Lucia di Lammermoor is explored with the help of soprano Diana Damrau.

Pappano looks at six of Verdi's most famous works - Nabucco, Rigoletto, Don Carlo, Otello, Falstaff and La Traviata, the last of which Pappano rehearses and conducts at the Royal Opera House with the starry cast of Renee Fleming, Joseph Calleja and Thomas Hampson.

Pappano travels to Le Roncole in northern Italy where Verdi was born amidst a turbulent political environment, and politics became a major influence on Verdi's operas in later life. He conducts Va Pensiero from Nabucco at a vast open-air concert in Naples, a chorus which was to become a powerful symbol of political unity for the Italian people.


SUN 01:45 Princess Margaret: The Rebel Royal (b0bkz5wv)
Series 1

Castaway

The second film in this intimate portrait finds Princess Margaret and her husband Anthony Armstrong-Jones at the start of their married life in the early 1960s. At home with celebrities and artists, they are riding the wave of a cultural and sexual revolution that is transforming Britain.

In 1965, they set off on an official royal tour of the United States. From California to small-town Arizona, the royal couple promote Britain by day and party by night. They attend a dinner with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in a world where Hollywood royalty increasingly competes with the real thing. In Britain, the press starts to ask if the extravagant royal tour is a good way to spend public money. The mystique of monarchy is being increasingly undermined by the emergence of a more open and egalitarian society.

In the years that follow, Anthony Armstrong-Jones begins to withdraw from royal duties and the couple lead increasingly separate lives. Press speculation about the state of their marriage intensifies. In the 1970s Margaret retreats more and more to the Caribbean island of Mustique in an attempt to secure a private life. In an era of celebrity gossip and the telephoto lens, her relationship with a younger man and beach parties with rock stars like Mick Jagger lead to ever more press interest. As Britain lurches from one economic crisis to the next, Margaret's Caribbean lifestyle becomes the lightning rod for republican attacks on the monarchy.

In 1978, Margaret reflects changing attitudes sweeping the country and gets a divorce. The rebel royal is now increasingly eclipsed by a new generation of princesses. But in her own way, Princess Margaret helped pave the way for them and for the monarchy of the 21st century.

Contributors include Lady Anne Glenconner, a childhood friend who became her lady-in-waiting, Jane Stevens, one of her closest friends, Basil Charles, the owner of a bar on the Caribbean island of Mustique, David Griffin, Princess Margaret's chauffeur, and Craig Brown, her unofficial biographer.


SUN 02:45 Arctic with Bruce Parry (b00ylx9f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]

MONDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2023

MON 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b09l5n6s)
Series 9

Chichester to Cowes

His early 20th-century Bradshaw's guide in hand, Michael Portillo is in Chichester, West Sussex, where he encounters an Edwardian motoring duo patronised by King Edward VII. After a grand tour of their factory, he is treated to some R&R in one of their finest vehicles. Arriving in the seaside resort of Southsea, Hampshire, Michael heads for the majestic King's Theatre, built by a renowned theatre designer of the day. He treads the boards with a group of true thespians, in a community production of Lads in the Village.

Crossing the Solent with a ticket to Ryde, Michael boards the Island Line to travel along the pier in a 1930s London Underground carriage, then hops on to the Isle of Wight heritage line bound for Wootton. His destination is Osborne House, where the future King Edward VII spent much of his childhood.


MON 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000j47t)
Series 1

Sunset over the Waves

In another 30-minute masterclass, Bob Ross conjures up a fantastic seascape. Sense the waves crashing and enjoy the golden, pink and mauve tones Bob creates in the sky.


MON 20:00 The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution (b0133hpx)
Painting the People

Waldemar Januszczak continues his investigation of the Impressionists, focusing this time on the people they painted and in particular the subjects of Degas, Caillebotte and the often forgotten Impressionist women artists. The Impressionists are famous for painting landscape but they were just as determined to paint people.

Looking closely at one of Impressionism's finest painters, Edgar Degas, Waldemar reveals how he consistently challenged traditions and strove to record real life as it appeared in the city, from sculpting the contorted movements of horses in motion at the Longchamp race course in Paris to encapsulating extravagant 3D viewpoints of the ballet dancers at the Paris Opera.

Waldemar also uncovers the intoxicating haziness the pastel produced in Degas' work when visiting his supplier Pastels de Roche. He also reveals the unusual viewpoints and dramatic perspectives of Caillebotte's paintings from the Place de L'Europe and the rebellious and revolutionary art of Morisot, Bracquemond and Cassatt, three impressive female artists who were eagerly embraced by the progressive movement of Impressionism.


MON 21:00 Britain's Lost Masterpieces (m000b8ns)
Series 4

Cardiff

Art detectives Bendor Grosvenor and Emma Dabiri travel to the National Museum Cardiff to investigate a badly overpainted Madonna, currently attributed to a follower of Botticelli, that shows signs of being worthy of investigation. Bendor believes the picture is good enough to warrant an attribution to Botticelli’s workshop, and conservation may reveal evidence of the hand of the master himself. Cleaning the picture confirms that a faker had tried to artificially age the panel.

Bendor then travels to Florence to explore the early Renaissance, and the life and work of Botticelli, hoping to find evidence that will support a new attribution. Meanwhile, Emma Dabiri explores the story of the two immensely wealthy Welsh sisters who donated the work to the museum, and discovers how they tried to bring about their own renaissance in the cultural life of their native Wales.


MON 22:00 Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone (p0d3ktnf)
Series 1

Part Six - 1994 to 1998

The group around the president believe a war in Chechnya will save him. Others want the war to restore the glory of the Russian Empire. The Oligarchs seize control of practically everything. In an upside-down world, gangsters become heroes for defending democracy.


MON 23:00 Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone (p0d3kv2z)
Series 1

Part Seven - 1995 to 1999

A massive boom spreads through Moscow. It seems that capitalism has arrived. But suddenly the western bankers flee, taking the money with them. The Oligarchs take control of a ruined society and search for a new president who they believe will make them safe. And who they can control. The Russian people turn against what they called 'the curse of democracy'. Both communism and democracy are finished.


MON 00:00 The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution (b0133hpx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


MON 01:00 Ancient Worlds (b00wnmb1)
The Republic of Virtue

How did an insignificant cluster of Latin hill villages on the edge of the civilised world become the greatest empire the world has known? In the fifth programme of the series, archaeologist and historian Richard Miles examines the phenomenon of the Roman Republic, from its fratricidal mythical beginnings, with the legend of Romulus and Remus, to the all too real violence of its end, dragged to destruction by war lords like Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar.

Travelling to Sicily and North Africa, Richard tells the story of Rome's century-long struggle for dominance with the other great regional power, Carthage. It was a struggle that would end with the total destruction of this formidable enemy and the transformation of landlubber Rome into a seapower, and the Republic into an Empire. But with no-one left to beat, the only enemy that Rome had left was itself.


MON 02:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b09l5n6s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 02:30 The Joy of Painting (m000j47t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 03:00 Britain's Lost Masterpieces (m000b8ns)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

TUESDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2023

TUE 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b09m2j0l)
Series 9

Swanwick to Brownsea Island

Steered by his Edwardian Bradshaw's guide, Michael Portillo promises to do his best on the island where Robert Baden Powell began the Scout movement in the early 20th century. Joining a group of modern Scouts he learns to build a bivouac and finds out what it is about Scouting that still appeals to boys - and girls - today.

In the New Forest, Michael searches out some unsung heroes of the First World War, the ponies who became war horses, and hears their story from a commoner who runs a stable and riding school. Plus in Bournemouth, he investigates a very British institution: the beach hut.


TUE 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000jb6s)
Series 1

Golden Glow

In just 30 minutes, Bob Ross shows how you can make a snow scene in a painting glow. Even a tiny shanty by the pond can be a warm place in the dead of winter.


TUE 20:00 As Time Goes By (p045tlcg)
Series 1

You Must Remember This

Jean is baffled when her daughter goes out with one of her clients. When the two meet, they realise they were once lovers, separated during the Korean War.


TUE 20:30 The Mistress (m001j636)
Series 1

Episode 6

Comedy series written by Carla Lane. Luke realises that he must fulfil his promise to Maxine and spend a whole weekend with her.


TUE 21:00 A History of Britain by Simon Schama (b0074l1q)
Series 1

Burning Convictions

Simon Schama sets out to explain how Britain stopped being a Catholic country in just three generations. Henry VIII's passion for Anne Boleyn set in motion a tidal wave of religious upheaval that would claim the lives of thousands. Although Henry himself remained a Catholic all his life, his son Edward VI, a Protestant by conviciton, made sure there would be no going back, despite Bloody Mary's last ditch attempt to hold back the Reformation.


TUE 22:00 Storyville (m001j638)
The Spy in Your Mobile

A Storyville documentary that investigates a powerful and terrifying spyware called Pegasus, sold to governments around the world by Israeli company NSO Group and used on journalists, activists and others, including both the wife and fiancée of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.


TUE 23:30 Ancient Worlds (b00wsqk6)
City of Man, City of God

In the last of the series, archaeologist and historian Richard Miles examines the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.

At the height of its power, the Roman Empire extended the benefits of its civilization to a 60 million citizens and subjects in a swathe of territory that extended from Hadrian's Wall to the banks of the Euphrates. Even under the rule of mad, bad and dangerous emperors, the imperial system proved to be robust, buttressed by the support of elite families in the far-flung corners of the empire whose loyalty was ensured by a system of cultural aspiration, economic opportunity and military coercion.

But the material benefits of the 'good order' delivered by Roman rule provided its citizens and subjects with the security to ask profound questions about the meaning of life, questions that the pragmatic, polytheistic Roman belief system was ill-equipped to answer. Christianity grew to fill the spiritual vacuum at the heart of Roman civilization, eventually claiming an Emperor, Constantine, as its greatest prize. The City of Man would be eclipsed the City of God.


TUE 00:30 The Magic of Mushrooms (b041m6fh)
Professor Richard Fortey delves into the fascinating and normally hidden kingdom of fungi. From their spectacular birth, through their secretive underground life to their final explosive death, Richard reveals a remarkable world that few of us understand or even realise exists - yet all life on earth depends on it.

In a specially built mushroom lab, with the help of mycologist Dr Patrick Hickey and some state-of-the-art technology, Richard brings to life the secret world of mushrooms as never seen before and reveals the spectacular abilities of fungi to break down waste and sustain new plant life, keeping our planet alive.

Beyond the lab, Richard travels across Britain and beyond to show us the biggest, fastest and most deadly organisms on the planet - all of them fungi. He reveals their almost magical powers that have world-changing potential - opening up new frontiers in science, medicine and technology.


TUE 01:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b09m2j0l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


TUE 02:00 Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities (b03l7psf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:45 on Sunday]


TUE 03:00 A History of Britain by Simon Schama (b0074l1q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2023

WED 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b09m8hgm)
Series 9

Whitland to Swansea

Dressed in the colours of the Welsh flag and with his 'new' Edwardian Bradshaw's guide in hand, Michael Portillo embarks on a railway adventure, from the coalfields of south Wales around the Bristol Channel to the southernmost tip of Cornwall. His first stop is Whitland in Carmarthenshire, where in the early 20th century, thrill-seekers gathered on Pendine Sands to indulge their need for speed. Michael joins latter day petrolheads to burn rubber on the beach in an iconic three-wheeler.

In Llanelli, Michael retraces the fateful events of a national rail strike in 1911 and is stirred by the sound of a male voice choir as they sing the town's unofficial anthem. At Loughor, he discovers a passionate preacher, who led a religious revival which gripped Edwardian Wales and had profound implications for the nation's established church.

In a suburban semi-detached house in the 'sprawling, crawling town of Swansea', Michael discovers the restored home of the poet Dylan Thomas, and the tiny bedroom in which he wrote two thirds of his published work.


WED 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000jb7m)
Series 1

Roadside Barn

Follow Bob Ross to a new destination as he paints an old dirt road leading up to a quaint country barn nestled in nature’s greenery.


WED 20:00 Michael Palin's New Europe (b0084kpm)
From Pole to Pole

Michael Palin journeys through Poland, from the port of Gdansk in the north to the Slovakian border south of the Tatra Mountains. He considers the upheavals that traumatised Poland for 70 years, visiting Auschwitz and the spiritual capital of Poland, Czestechowa, where politics and religion are never far apart.

Palin meets the great European maestro, Lech Walesa, whose independent trade union Solidarity lit a fuse under Communism's grip on Eastern Europe. Then he marvels at the miracle of Warsaw, razed to the ground on Hitler's orders and restored to its old glory, brick by brick, from original plans.

He also enjoys the pleasures Poland has to offer, accepting a cameo role on stage with one of Poland's most famous cabaret groups, driving a steam loco on the Polish rail network out of Poznan during rush hour, and appearing on Polish breakfast TV, where he takes a Polish lesson from a Londoner who went to work in Poland and learned the language by drinking with Poles.


WED 21:00 Inside Porton Down: Britain's Secret Weapons Research Facility (b07hx40t)
Dr Michael Mosley investigates Britain's most secretive and controversial military research base, Porton Down, on its 100th anniversary. He comes face to face with chemical and biological weapons old and new, reveals the truth about shocking animal and human testing, and discovers how the latest science and technology are helping to defend us against terrorist attacks and rogue nations.


WED 22:00 Edge of Darkness (m001j61k)
Series 1

Compassionate Leave/Into the Shadows

A moment's savagery on a rainswept night presents detective Ronald Craven with his most harrowing case. The search for the killer of his daughter Emma becomes a heart-stopping journey to the heart of the nuclear secret state.


WED 23:45 The Story of Welsh Art (m000st2g)
Series 1

Episode 1

Huw Stephens explores what has long been a missing piece in the cultural story of Britain and indeed Wales itself – the story of Welsh art.

Huw starts his journey on the island of Anglesey where he steps inside a prehistoric burial chamber to witness Welsh art in its earliest form. He sees an exquisite example of Bronze Age artistry in the form of a gold cape, found by chance in a field in North Wales and now one of the prize exhibits in the British Museum.

Religious art delivers some of the most powerful and physically impressive pieces, from towering Celtic crosses standing sentinel in churchyards, to the sleeping figure of Jesse, hewn out of a single piece of oak but also delicately depicted in a rare surviving example of Welsh medieval stained glass.

As artists moved their gaze beyond religion, the rise of portraiture began, with Hans Memling delivering the first known oil painting of a named Welsh person, John Donne, in the 15th century.


WED 00:45 Michael Palin's New Europe (b0084kpm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 01:45 Inside Porton Down: Britain's Secret Weapons Research Facility (b07hx40t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


WED 02:45 Great British Railway Journeys (b09m8hgm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


WED 03:15 The Joy of Painting (m000jb7m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]

THURSDAY 16 FEBRUARY 2023

THU 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b09m8hhr)
Series 9

Pontyclun to Ebbw Vale Town

Armed with his Edwardian Bradshaw's guide, Michael strikes gold at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, where after much frisking, he gains access to the inner vaults.

At Cardiff Arms Park, Michael revisits the scene of a triumphant Welsh victory over the fearsome All Blacks and hears from Welsh international Gerald Davies how the Welsh national anthem kicked the intimidating Haka into touch.

In Cardiff Bay, Michael discovers the departure point for one of the Edwardian era's most famous expeditions - Scott's ill-fated voyage to the Antarctic. Aboard the racing yacht Challenge Wales, Michael meets young sailors training for a Tall Ships Race.


THU 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000jb7r)
Series 1

Golden Knoll

Bob Ross paints a beautiful monochromatic scene with delicate leafless trees and a rich grassy meadow cuddling a sweet cottage.


THU 20:00 Queen Victoria's Letters: A Monarch Unveiled (b04p1vx1)
Episode 1

Examining the first half of Queen Victoria's life, biographer AN Wilson goes in search of a monarch too often misunderstood as the solid black-clad matron and reveals a woman who was passionately romantic and who spent her years as a child and young queen fighting the control of domineering men.

Queen Victoria was one of the 19th century's most prolific diarists, sometimes writing up to 2,500 words a day. From state affairs to family gossip, she poured out her emotions onto paper. Those close to her were afraid her more alarming opinions might escape in written form, causing havoc. In fact much of her writing was destroyed after her death and her personal journals edited by her daughter. But what survives frequently reveals a woman quite different to the one we think we know. AN Wilson reads her personal journals and unpublished letters and discovers the factors that shaped the queen's personality. From the tortured relationship with her mother, to the dominant men she clung to in search of a father figure and the powerful struggle that made her marriage to Prince Albert a battleground, Queen Victoria was always a woman in search of intimate relationships. As a daughter, a wife, a mother and the queen of a growing empire, as friends and family came and went, her pen remained her constant companion and friend.

Queen Victoria's journals and letters are read by Anna Chancellor throughout.


THU 21:00 Dark Waters (m001j65w)
Past ties drag corporate lawyer Rob into conflict with a company blamed for polluting a local creek. But as the case goes on, Rob discovers that the scope of the actual damage is staggeringly vast.


THU 23:00 The Man Who Knew Infinity (m0011wzr)
1914. The mathematical claims of a Hindu clerk in Madras bring him to Trinity College, Cambridge. However, his intuitive insights do not fit with academia’s demands for meticulously calculated proofs, and race proves a further bar to acceptance.


THU 00:40 Around the World in 80 Treasures (b0078w68)
Series 1

Mali to Egypt

Dan Cruickshank’s journey around the world reaches new heights of discomfort in the heat and dust of the desert. He takes in the astonishing cave paintings of the Dogon tribe before embarking on a love affair in Egypt with the most beautiful woman in history for whom he must brave two giant jackals. In between, he witnesses the grotesque masks of Mali that connect the world of the living with the world of the dead, survives a power cut in the middle of the deepest, darkest chamber of the dead in the Great Pyramid outside Cairo, lives a day in the life of a Roman trader in Leptis Magna and identifies with Laurence of Arabia in the desert of Libya.

One amazing surprise is the biggest mud building in the world, which cools down in the African sun by means of an installation of 104 saucepan lids on its roof - possibly the simplest ventilation system in the world but also the most ingenious. Finally, as he floats into the sunset down the Nile, he contemplates how it will feel to re-enter Europe after four months away.


THU 01:40 Great British Railway Journeys (b09m8hhr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


THU 02:10 The Joy of Painting (m000jb7r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 02:40 Queen Victoria's Letters: A Monarch Unveiled (b04p1vx1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

FRIDAY 17 FEBRUARY 2023

FRI 19:00 Top of the Pops (m001j656)
Mark Owen and Robbie Williams present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 17 March 1994 and featuring Bjork, Blur, Tori Amos, Bruce Springsteen, Alison Moyet, Madonna, Roachford, Roxette and Doop.


FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (m001j65b)
Simon Mayo presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 24 March 1994 and featuring Soul Asylum, Bon Jovi, D:Ream, Worlds Apart, Salt-N-Pepa with En Vogue, Take That and Doop.


FRI 20:00 Top of the Pops (b01cqrvq)
Noel Edmonds presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 24 February 1977 and featuring Racing Cars, Barbara Dickson, Leo Sayer, The Real Thing, Heatwave, Bryan Ferry, ELO and Legs & Co.


FRI 20:30 Top of the Pops (m000dt74)
Mark Goodier and Andy Crane present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 16 February 1989 and featuring Def Leppard, Simple Minds, Gloria Estefan, Poison, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Pop Will Eat Itself, Debbie Gibson, Texas, Sam Brown, The Style Council, Marc Almond and Gene Pitney, and S-Express.


FRI 21:00 Boy George and Culture Club: Karma to Calamity (b054v27d)
In the early 1980s, Culture Club was one of the biggest bands in the world, selling 150 million records worldwide. Formed in London, the band was comprised of Boy George on vocals, Mikey Craig on bass, Roy Hay on guitar and keyboards and Jon Moss on drums. As well as their UK success, the band was huge in the USA - notching up ten top 40 hits. Being part of Band Aid cemented them as stalwarts of the 80s, a band that broke down barriers and left a huge legacy for the stars that came later, before they disbanded in 1986.

However, they are a band with a past as colourful as their music. George had a secret affair with his drummer Jon Moss and when they acrimoniously split, the band fell apart and George descended into heroin addiction. Over the years there have been numerous failed attempts to reunite the band.

In 2014 Culture Club decided to come back together to record a new album and embark on a UK and US tour. Director Mike Nicholls has unique access, following the band as they first meet in George's London home to write new material. However, it's not long before creative differences and tensions from their past begin to emerge. Faultlines develop further when the band travel to Spain to record the new album, spending two weeks working and living together in a remote recording studio.

As the band return to London to prepare for the tour, they suffer a Twitter mauling after their first big public performance on Strictly Come Dancing. Relations are even more strained when George and the band sign to separate managers and a sudden illness threatens the whole reunion.

The film looks at the band's troubled past, examining the themes of success, fame and ego, and reveals the personalities behind one of the most iconic bands of all time.


FRI 22:00 Radio 2 In Concert (b0bqtf57)
Boy George and Culture Club

Recorded at the BBC Radio Theatre in London in 2018, Boy George and Culture Club are one of the most representative and influential bands of the 1980s and have sold over 150 million records worldwide. Winners of numerous awards, they rose to fame in the early 1980s with an illustrious music career now spanning four decades.

In this special and intimate show, expect some of their classic tunes such as Karma Chameleon and Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? as well as songs from 2018's Life, their first studio album since Don't Mind If I Do, which came out in 1999.


FRI 23:05 The New Romantics: A Fine Romance (b007btt3)
Culture Club, Spandau Ballet, Visage, Marilyn, Adam and the Ants, Duran Duran, ABC... At the dawn of the 80s, a whole host of strangely dressed men in make-up burst forth onto the music scene brandishing synthesisers and kicking against the visual ugliness of punk.

They came mainly from the London club scene, led by gender-bending host Steve Strange and pioneering electronic DJ Rusty Egan, and conquered the charts with classic tracks such as Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, To Cut a Long Story Short, Kings of the Wild Frontier, Planet Earth, Fade to Grey, Calling Your Name and Poison Arrow.

Magenta Devine narrates this gay and colourful behind-the-scene documentary of sex and drugs and frocks and hair-rollers, which includes interviews with Boy George, Gary Kemp, Adam Ant, Nick Rhodes, Steve Strange, Rusty Egan, Marilyn, Jonathan Ross, Caryn Franklin, Fiona Bruce and Robert Elms.


FRI 23:55 Stewart Copeland's Adventures in Music (m000dl2n)
Series 1

Episode 2

Stewart Copeland continues his mission to understand how music works by exploring its extraordinary power to tell stories.

His journey includes meetings with film director Francis Ford Coppola, who explains how simple musical devices transformed the most famous scenes in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, his old friend Sting, who describes the secrets of his songwriting process, rapper Talib Kweli, who looks at the power of music in protest, and the French-Cuban Ibeyi sisters, who show how music has kept the Yoruban tradition alive. Finally, he meets the man who composed one of the shortest but most effective musical stories ever written - the Intel bongs!


FRI 00:55 Boy George and Culture Club: Karma to Calamity (b054v27d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 01:55 Top of the Pops (m001j656)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


FRI 02:25 Top of the Pops (m001j65b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


FRI 02:55 Top of the Pops (b01cqrvq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


FRI 03:25 Top of the Pops (m000dt74)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]