SATURDAY 27 APRIL 2024

SAT 19:00 Coast (b08s2bg7)
Series 8 Reversions

Episode 16

On the Isle of Wight, Nick Crane discovers a tunnel in the cliff. Sarah Beynon examines dung beetles in cow pats on Ramsey Island and sees Chuffs feeding on them.

Up in Yorkshire, Nick Crane examines the receding cliffs and sees a massive WWII defensive structure now lying on the beach. He visits Aldeburgh, which is under threat from the sea, where many houses have already been condemned due to sea erosion. At Lyme Regis, Cassie Newland examines old rubbish revealed from the old dump.


SAT 19:25 Rick Stein's Long Weekends (b083w5nl)
Cadiz

Rick's series of culinary city breaks continues with a trip to the historic city of Cadiz in southern Spain. Rick is captivated by its narrow winding streets as he walks in the footsteps of Phoenician and Arab traders who made a lasting impression on the city.

Tavernas offer tantalising tapas, including chickpea stews, cured pork lardons, freshly grilled mackerel and rice dishes flavoured with garlic, saffron and parsley. Rick times his visit perfectly to enjoy the city's two most revered culinary stars - fresh tuna and manzanilla.

At home, Rick cooks arroz verde - green rice - and flamenco eggs, a dish of eggs with tomatoes and vegetables.


SAT 20:25 Snooker: World Championship (m001ytrt)
2024

Day 8: Evening Session, Part 2

Coverage of the evening session on day eight of the 2024 World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.


SAT 22:00 Inspector Montalbano (m0018znx)
The Catalanotti Method

Montalbano grapples with the murder of Carmelo Catalanotti, the leader of an amateur dramatics company whose devotion to Catalanotti and his peculiar take on theatre borders on fanaticism.

His assailant stabbed him in the chest, but without leaving a trace of blood. Might the key to discovering the identity of the killer be bound up in Catalanotti's disturbing conception of the stage?

The final episode of the Montalbano saga.

In Italian with English subtitles.


SAT 23:55 Ronnie’s: Ronnie Scott and His World-Famous Jazz Club (m000pjcm)
A music documentary that celebrates the legacy of Ronnie Scott and his world-famous jazz club. Featuring previously unseen and unheard performances as well as interviews with some of the most iconic figures in music, the film explores the club’s 60-year history and shines a light on the uncompromising men and women who both built it and who took to its stage.

Named after the late tenor saxophonist who founded the club in London’s bohemian district of Soho in 1959 with business partner Pete King, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club was inspired by the vibrant postwar music scene in New York and quickly became the city’s most famous music venue. Since then the club has consistently played host to the world’s greatest musical legends, including Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Roland Kirk, Buddy Rich, Oscar Peterson and Nina Simone.

Ronnie Scott was among the earliest British musicians influenced by Charlie Parker and became one of the finest saxophone players in Europe. His chief motivation in starting a jazz club was to create a space where he and his contemporaries were free to play modern, forward-thinking music.

Ronnie was beloved by many, from the great and famous who frequented his club to the many hard-up musicians who were often helped by his warmth and generous spirit. However, Ronnie was as complex and colourful as the music played on his stage. In private, Ronnie battled with depression, and when his untimely death occurred in 1996, it left the jazz community bereft of a respected and favourite leader.


SAT 01:40 Rick Stein's Long Weekends (b083w5nl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:25 today]

SUNDAY 28 APRIL 2024

SUN 19:00 Rick Stein's Long Weekends (b085024t)
Thessaloniki

Rick's series of culinary city breaks continues with a trip to the north eastern Greek city of Thessaloniki nestling on the northern shores of the Aegean Sea. The city is revered as the gourmet capital of Greece and birthplace to possibly the greatest warrior general that ever lived, Alexander.

Rick explores a city of many identities, a time warp of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman structures surprisingly teeming with a very young student population hungry for dishes that reflect the freshest of seafood, vibrant mezzes flavoured with cinnamon, paprika and saffron and sweet syrupy pastries. A true blend of west meeting east. Rick arrives just in time for harvesting peaches on land and mussels out at sea.

At home he cooks veal and aubergine stew after meeting the doyenne of Greek cooking Vefa Alexiadou.


SUN 20:00 Snooker: World Championship (m001ytrp)
2024

Day 9: Evening Session, Part 2

Coverage of the evening session on day nine of the 2024 World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield.


SUN 22:00 Snooker: World Championship (b00s9dg4)
The '85 Final

Davis v Taylor: The '85 Black Ball Final

A look back at one of British sport's golden moments - the 1985 World Championship Snooker final. At its peak, over 18 and a half million people sat glued to their sets as Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor battled past midnight to a final and deciding black ball, BBC Two's biggest ever audience.

Colin Murray journeys around the UK filling in the gaps on the first time that he was allowed to see the other side of midnight. Along the way he finds answers to questions such as where did Dennis's 'upside-down glasses' actually come from? What really went on behind those dressing room doors? How did you spread the news in a world without mobile phones? And how different would the lives of the two protagonists have been if the result had been reversed that night?

Featuring contributions from Barry McGuigan, Ted Lowe, Stephen Hendry and Barry Hearn.


SUN 23:00 Alex Higgins: The People's Champion (b00tmzfb)
One man transfixed television viewers during snooker's golden age - Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins. This poignant documentary charts the remarkable rise and fall of the snooker genius, from his early days growing up in Belfast to his climb to the top of the sport as two-time world champion.

Higgins was pure showbiz, a mercurial talent at the table who played the game like nobody had done before. Boxing had Muhammad Ali, football was blessed by George Best - snooker had Alex Higgins. Yet like Best, Higgins's brilliance was flawed by his demons. We chart the depressing lows - the alcohol abuse, threatening to have fellow Ulsterman Dennis Taylor shot, headbutting a senior member of snooker's hierarchy and falling out of a top floor window and living to tell the tale after a row with his then-girlfriend.

The Higgins story is completed with the final chapter of his life spent battling throat cancer; desperate hours spent in pubs and working men's clubs trying to rekindle his halcyon days; finally unable to eat properly because he'd lost his teeth and in the end, ultimately found dead alone in sheltered accommodation.

At times uplifting, but at other moments very sad - this is a rollercoaster journey charting the life of snooker's 'rock and roll star'.

Contributors include Jimmy White, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Dennis Taylor, Barry Hearn, Steve Davis, Ray Reardon and members of the Higgins family.


SUN 00:00 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.


SUN 01:00 A Victorian Scandal: The Rudest Book in Britain (m0005prc)
Dr Fern Riddell is a young historian and author who goes back to the archives to challenge more traditional historical views of Victorian society.

Her investigation into a sensational Victorian high court trial, which took place in 1877, sheds new light on the ‘no sex please, we are British’ cliché often associated with Victorian England.


SUN 01:30 Rick Stein's Long Weekends (b085024t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SUN 02:30 Snooker: World Championship (b00s9dg4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]

MONDAY 29 APRIL 2024

MON 19:00 Great Australian Railway Journeys (m000bpvs)
Series 1

Kuranda to Townsville

From tropical rainforest to the Great Barrier Reef, Michael Portillo navigates his way by rail through Queensland, Australia, with the aid of his 1913 Bradshaw’s Guide.

Inching his way across the Stony Creek Bridge on the Kuranda Scenic Railway, Michael marvels at the engineering expertise of the 1890s, when the line was built, and the magnificent scenery 300 metres below him.

Following in the footsteps of Edwardian tourists, Michael is introduced to the beautiful flora and fauna of the rainforest – and its deadly inhabitants.

The Spirit of Queensland service carries him south to the Tully sugar plantation, where he learns to harvest sugar cane and seizes the chance to drive the Sugar Cane Express. In the wonderfully preserved art deco town of Innisfail, Michael learns how resilient Queenslanders withstand the tropical storms which strike the region. More challenging wildlife awaits him in the hinterland, where he braves a crocodile safari.

At Mungalla cattle station, Michael joins the indigenous owner for a feast cooked underground. He hears how Indigenous Australians faced brutality at the hands of 19th-century settlers and how today at Mungalla they are taking their destiny into their own hands.

After a sing-along at the Billabong, Michael makes tracks for Townsville and the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. Pioneering photographs taken at the time of his Bradshaw’s brought the corals to the world’s attention and now two million people visit the reef annually. Michael discovers a citizen army is deploying robots to protect the world heritage site from a hungry predator.


MON 20:00 Snooker: World Championship (m001ytzl)
2024

Day 10: Evening Session, Part 2

Coverage of the evening session on day ten of the 2024 World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield.


MON 22:00 Civilisation (b0074r3s)
Man: The Measure of All Things

Kenneth Clark continues his personal reflections on civilisation with a look at Renaissance man.

Clark visits Florence, where the resurrection of a classical past first gave a new impetus to European thought, and then journeys to the palaces of Urbino and Mantua, where the Renaissance manifested itself in glorious architecture.

He talks of humanism and of perspective, of Donatello, Botticelli and Van Eyck.


MON 22:50 Civilisation (b0074r4b)
The Hero as Artist

Kenneth Clark continues his personal reflections on civilisation with a look at Papal Rome in the early 16th century.

Three great artists, Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, are the chief protagonists in Clark's 'Individuals of Genius' theme. It takes him through the gardens and courtyards of the Vatican to the rooms decorated for the Pope by Raphael, and to the Sistine Chapel.


MON 23:40 imagine... (m0006wh6)
2019

Faith Ringgold: Tell It Like It Is

Harlem-born artist, author and activist Faith Ringgold painted some of the most truthful and empowering representations of African Americans during the civil rights and women’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

At the time, the art establishment dismissed her seminal American People series as political art by a woman, and a black woman at that. Undeterred, Ringgold continued to tell her story using numerous art forms, including traditional quilts which have their roots in the slave culture of the South. Ringgold reinterpreted their function to tell politically charged stories, something she has also done with her illustrated children’s books.

Now in her late 80s, Ringgold is considered one of the most important African American artists, whose work is increasingly relevant today. imagine… spends time with this impassioned feminist, civil rights activist and champion of imagination, following her in her New Jersey studio and in the heart of Harlem as she prepares for her London show at the Serpentine Gallery.


MON 00:50 Great Australian Railway Journeys (m000bpvs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 01:50 A Victorian Scandal: The Rudest Book in Britain (m0005prc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 01:00 on Sunday]

TUESDAY 30 APRIL 2024

TUE 19:00 Great Australian Railway Journeys (m000bxwq)
Series 1

Newcastle to Brisbane

Michael Portillo is on the eastern coast of Australia travelling from the coal mines of Newcastle, New South Wales, to Queensland’s modern state capital, Brisbane. Along the way, he crosses the mighty Hawkesbury River to admire magnificent scenery, tends to an injured koala, gets some tips from an Aussie rugby legend and rides a solar-powered train.

In the world’s largest coal exporting port, Michael marvels at the skill of the loader as he transfers thousands of tonnes of coal from rail to ship. The North Coast Line takes Michael to the koala hospital at Port Macquarie, where he finds populations of these iconic marsupials are in rapid decline.

At Kempsey, Michael discovers a factory where, at the time of his Bradshaw’s, they began to make the quintessential Australian bush hat. Michael learns how the hats are produced and tries some for size.

In Woolgoolga, Michael joins a Sikh community to hear how they have integrated into Australian society. He learns how to meditate on the beach at Byron Bay and tastes traditional lamington cake in Brisbane before tackling training with the Queensland Reds.


TUE 20:00 Snooker: World Championship (m001yty3)
2024

Day 11: Evening Session, Part 2

Coverage of the evening session on day 11 of the 2024 World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield.


TUE 22:00 The 15 Billion Pound Railway (m0002p93)
Under Pressure, Over Budget

Episode 2

With exclusive access, this returning series follows the construction workers of Crossrail as they battle to finish the final stages of the new Elizabeth Line underground railway beneath the streets of London.

Costing over fifteen billion pounds and stretching 120km across the capital, this extraordinary construction project is one of the biggest in Europe and one of the most ambitious engineering feats in Britain since the time of Brunel.

The final part of the series picks up immediately after the shock news that the Elizabeth Line has been delayed by over a year and will cost hundreds of millions of pounds more than planned. The show discovers how engineers, technicians and train staff must pull together - working on borrowed time - to build and fit out ten brand new stations, learn to operate the new trains, and test out the new 21km twin tunnels under London, before it can open to the public. At stake are the reputation of the engineers, the reputation of the new railway and the reputation of British engineering.

Project manager Lih-Ling Highe is back to lead the installation of thousands of kilometres of vital power cables through the largest station on the Elizabeth Line – Tottenham Court Road. Tottenham Court Road is also expected to be one of the busiest underground stations attracting 200,000 passengers a day. If the cables are damaged or incorrectly wired, the station cannot be switched on and the project will be delayed once more.

At Bond Street Station, beneath London’s most expensive shopping street, Tim Weihen and his team are tasked with installing three 65m-long escalators – the longest on the railway – in the tightest of shafts so passengers can get to the trains. In a nail-biting process, the team must lower the bulky escalator sections, weighing up to seven tonnes, over the edge of a 30-degree drop in order to build all three escalators on time.

One of the world’s most famous train stations – Paddington Station – is getting a new Elizabeth Line station hub next door, and site manager Cynthia Myndhardt is in charge of building and fitting it out. The most daring feature of the station is a 130m-long great glass canopy to soar above the site, and help plug it into Brunel’s original grade one listed station – a nerve-wracking feat considering any damage to the historic building could result in a prison sentence. 

The show also meets up with new recruit Rochelle as she continues her quest to become an Elizabeth Line driver. We follow her on her most nerve-wracking challenge to date – driving 1,500 passengers from Shenfield, Essex, to central London - in rush hour. Ahead of her lies 32km of busy track, 73 warning signals and 16 strict speed restrictions to follow, all of which must be intensely monitored along her route.

The episode ends with a second shock announcement that the project must delay again and that an even bigger bailout of £2 billion is needed. With station construction, tunnel fit out and train testing still incomplete, the fate of the now £17 billion-pound railway hangs in the balance.


TUE 23:00 Chasing the Moon (m0006vr0)
Series 1

Earthrise - Part 1

What exactly was it going to take for America to beat the Soviets to the moon? Cold War tensions persisted, as rumours circulated that the Soviets were preparing to send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon. Nasa quickly developed the Gemini programme, sending astronauts into orbit around the Earth to practice critical manoeuvres for the eventual trip to the moon. Ed White became the first American to walk in space, an experience so exhilarating that, when Houston ordered him back in the space craft, he replied, ‘Not yet!’.

Nasa’s next-generation spacecraft, Apollo 1, was meant to dramatically launch the new era. Virgil Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were Apollo’s very first crew. On a cool January day in Florida, in 1967, the three men suited up for a pre-launch training run in the new command capsule. Two and a half hours through the training, somewhere in the closed capsule, a fire broke out. The hatch design opened inwards and all three men perished. Mission control was powerless. The disaster shook the nation and left the future of Apollo, Nasa and the entire race to the moon in doubt. The cost perhaps was too high.


TUE 23:50 Chasing the Moon (m0006vr8)
Series 1

Earthrise - Part 2

In the aftermath of the deadly Apollo 1 fire, Nasa faced harsh scrutiny. The horror of the first casualties at Cape Kennedy led Americans to increasingly question the very premise of landing a man on the moon. Yet again, it was the Cold War that gave Nasa’s mission new urgency and life.

Amid concerns that the Soviets might exploit the hiatus to overtake the Americans, less than a year after the fatal Apollo 1 fire, the nation gathered on 21 December 1968, to watch as Apollo 8 lifted off and headed for the moon. Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman recalls, ‘My odds for mission success were a hundred percent. If I didn’t think I was coming back, I wasn’t going to go.’ The rest of America, Borman’s wife and children included, gathered nervously to watch the televised live broadcast as the Saturn V launched into orbit around the Earth and then took three men out of the gravitational pull of their home planet for the very first time.

As the American crew became the first to orbit the moon, footage and photography from Apollo 8 not only gave us images of the Earth’s satellite but an entirely new perspective of our world. Americans celebrated this unparalleled accomplishment. The space programme had turned a corner.


TUE 00:40 Civilisation (b0074r3s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Monday]


TUE 01:30 Civilisation (b0074r4b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:50 on Monday]


TUE 02:20 Great Australian Railway Journeys (m000bxwq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]

WEDNESDAY 01 MAY 2024

WED 19:00 Coast (b00ttmkn)
Series 4 (Shortened Versions)

Rottingdean and Volk's Electric Railway

A look around the coast of the British Isles. Mark Horton visits Rottingdean to look over Rudyard Kipling's garden wall and follow in the footsteps of the Victorian celebrity hunters, before unearthing the history of a unique Victorian electric railway which ran underwater - Magnus Volk's bizarre and beautiful 'daddy long-legs'.


WED 19:10 Great Railway Journeys (b0074pm8)
Series 4

Granada to Salamanca

Former Cabinet minister Michael Portillo reveals his complicated Spanish roots. His father was a professor of law and a poet at Salamanca University who joined the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War but refused to carry arms: he was not prepared to run the risk of killing one of his brothers, all six of whom fought for France. Exiled from Spain, Portillo senior longed to return home and many years later he did so, only to succumb to Alzheimer's disease.

Making good use of Spain's comprehensive rail network, Michael Portillo relives his family's troubled past. In Madrid he is guest of honour at a Sunday lunch attended by scores of relatives. Indeed, wherever he goes in Spain there are uncles and cousins ready to remember his father, who by general consent was a good man but a dreamer. The Portillos may have been divided by war but blood turns out to be a lot thicker than water.


WED 20:00 Snooker: World Championship (m001ytyr)
2024

Day 12: Evening Session, Part 2

Coverage of the evening session on day 12 of the 2024 World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield.


WED 22:00 The Invisible Woman (b052qqrm)
British biographical drama from BBC Films, adapted from Claire Tomalin's book. At the peak of his career, Charles Dickens meets a young actress who soon becomes his muse and mistress.


WED 23:40 Final Ascent: The Legend of Hamish MacInnes (m000hp3m)
The life of legendary Scottish mountaineer and rescuer Hamish MacInnes.

The legend of Hamish MacInnes began early. At 16 he climbed the Matterhorn, and at 17 he built his first motor car from scratch. He attempted Everest in 1953 with his friend Johnny Cunningham and almost stole the peak before Hillary and Tenzing claimed it. As an explorer, expedition leader and engineer he achieved world fame. As inventor of the all-metal ice axe, author of the International Mountain Rescue Handbook and founder of Glencoe Mountain Rescue, he has been responsible for saving hundreds of lives, perhaps thousands.

However, at the age of 84, his accomplishments could not save him from being institutionalised against his will, suffering from delirium. After a spell in psychogeriatric detainment in a hospital in the Highlands of Scotland, during which he made many escape attempts, he emerged to find his memory had disappeared.

This film tells the story of his life by mirroring his greatest challenge - to recover his memories and rescue himself. He did this by looking at the many thousands of pictures he had taken over the previous 60 years, which were stored in his basement. He was able to look at the many films he had made, both BBC archive and feature films on which he was stunt co-ordinator, such as The Eiger Sanction, Highlander, The Mission and Five Days One Summer. He was able to reabsorb and stimulate his mind using the many books he had written, memoirs of a life spent in the mountains.

The film beautifully mirrors that process, and features testimony from his old friends Sir Michael Palin, Sir Chris Bonington and the American inventor, businessman and environmentalist Yvon Chouinard.


WED 01:05 Great Railway Journeys (b0074pm8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:10 today]


WED 01:55 The 15 Billion Pound Railway (m0002p93)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Tuesday]

THURSDAY 02 MAY 2024

THU 19:00 Coast (b00xj5s8)
Series 4 (Shortened Versions)

The Needles: Isle of Wight

Nicholas Crane crosses the Solent to find out what's happened to England's largest island - the Isle of Wight. Once joined to the mainland, this fossil-rich area is a time capsule containing clues to the journey that the whole British Isles has been on and is still making. This powerful result emerges from a combination of rising sea levels and a sinking landscape.


THU 19:10 Great Railway Journeys (b0074pg3)
Series 4

Tokyo to Kagoshima

BBC foreign correspondent Fergal Keane travels through Japan, beginning his journey on the businessman's bullet train in Tokyo, where he receives earthquake training and lessons in Japanese etiquette.

During his journey through the countryside, he discovers Japan's spiritual life in gardens of silent contemplation, practises poetry at a haiku workshop, climbs a volcano, and visits a shrine to kamikaze pilots.


THU 20:00 Snooker: World Championship (m001ytyn)
2024

Day 13: Evening Session, Part 2

Coverage of the evening session on day 13 of the 2024 World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield.


THU 22:00 The History Boys (b01shmjd)
Alan Bennett's adaptation of his acclaimed, long-running play set in 1980s Yorkshire.

A class of likely lads, caught in a clash of educational styles as they prepare to apply to Oxford or Cambridge, find their loyalties as well as their intellects tested.


THU 23:50 Alan Bennett at 80: Hytner Meets Bennett (b043kx7y)
Sir Nicholas Hytner interviews living legend and playwright Alan Bennett on the eve of his 80th birthday. Ranging across 40 years of his work for stage, television and cinema, it is the first time these long term collaborators (The Madness of King George, The History Boys and more) have engaged in a full-length debate on television about the art of what they do. Includes clips of eight of Bennett's productions from Forty Years On (1968) to The Habit of Art (2009).


THU 00:50 Ronnie’s: Ronnie Scott and His World-Famous Jazz Club (m000pjcm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:55 on Saturday]


THU 02:35 Great Railway Journeys (b0074pg3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:10 today]

FRIDAY 03 MAY 2024

FRI 19:00 Top of the Pops (m001yty5)
Nicky Campbell presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 4 January 1996 and featuring Molella ft The Outhere Brothers, Dubstar, Madonna, Boyzone, The Presidents of the United States of America, Eternal, Everything but the Girl, Michael Jackson and George Michael.


FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (m001yty7)
Lisa L'Anson presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 11 January 1996 and featuring Judy Cheeks, Tori Amos, Baby D, Gene, Dreadzone, Oasis, Shaggy, Babylon Zoo and Michael Jackson.


FRI 20:00 Top of the Pops (m0002pf4)
Peter Powell and Steve Wright present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 30 April 1987, featuring the Jesus and Mary Chain, Starship, Labi Siffre, Level 42, Spear of Destiny, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Jones, Madonna and Duran Duran.


FRI 20:30 Top of the Pops (b010v8hw)
Noel Edmonds presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 6 May 1976 and featuring Mud, Frankie Valli, Barry Manilow, Fox, Robin Sarstedt, Sutherland Brothers & Quiver, Tina Charles, The Rolling Stones, Mac & Katie Kissoon, JJ Barrie, Cliff Richard, Abba and The Stylistics, danced to by Ruby Flipper.


FRI 21:00 Snooker: World Championship (m001yty9)
2024

Day 14: Evening Session, Part 2

Coverage of the evening session on day 14 of the 2024 World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield.


FRI 22:00 Top of the Pops (b08skpzg)
1984 - Big Hits

Celebrating the big hits from a big year in British pop. The big hitters in this compilation are performed by the likes of The Smiths, Duran Duran, Sade, The Weather Girls, Wham! and Bronski Beat, to name a few.

Further stellar appearances come from the TOTP debuts of iconic Americans Madonna, Miami Sound Machine and Cyndi Lauper, who runs riot in the studio.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood celebrate their 1984 chart dominance with one of their celebrated renditions of Two Tribes, while we couldn't let you forget a little ditty from Black Lace - you'll be singing this for days... you have been warned!


FRI 23:00 This Cultural Life (m001ytyc)
Boy George

Singer-songwriter Boy George talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences.


FRI 23:30 Top of the Pops (b08skpz5)
The Story of 1984

1984 sees Top of the Pops at the height of its 80s pomp - the year of big hair and big tunes. A BBC ban on Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax in January leads to an embarrassing Frankie-shaped hole on the show when it reaches No 1. One of the sounds of 1984 is Hi-NRG, that goes overground from the gay club scene into the mainstream charts. And 1984 is perhaps the gayest year in pop, with a trail blazed by Bronski Beat, who are out and proud and on Top of the Pops.

1984 sees the rise of the one-man acts such as Nik Kershaw and Howard Jones. And jazz pop's soaraway star is Sade, who brings a stripped-back soulful vibe to Top of the Pops. Yet 1984 isn't all about smooth sounds. German singer Nena hits the top spot with 99 Red Balloons - shocking Brits with her hairy armpits. And The Special AKA's Free Nelson Mandela combines a political message with an irresistible tune.

And the year ends on a landmark moment when many of the stars of the chart-topping Band Aid single appear in the studio as the climax to the Christmas show. It's a moment that reaffirms Top of the Pops's place at the heart of British pop culture.

Featuring original interviews with Trevor Horn, members of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Hazell Dean, Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Paul Young, Nigel Planer, Nena, Jerry Dammers and Midge Ure.


FRI 00:30 The 80s - Music’s Greatest Decade? (m00110rn)
Series 1

With Dylan Jones

Eighties music is often dismissed as a joke - all drum machines and big hair. But - as acclaimed author Dylan Jones argues in this film – the 1980s should be looked on as the most creative, radical and innovative decade in pop.

This was the decade when the world-conquering genres of rap, hip-hop and modern dance music were launched, while guitar-driven indie flourished in a constellation of scenes spread out across the UK that sowed the seeds of Britpop. And a technological revolution was changing how music was made, filling the charts with a starburst of innovative records.

Meanwhile, the launch of MTV turned pop into a visual medium, allowing artists as varied as U2 and Eurythmics to take charge of how they presented themselves.

Featuring interviews with Nile Rodgers, Bananarama, Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, Mark Ronson, Trevor Horn and Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B.


FRI 01:30 Top of the Pops (b08skpzg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


FRI 02:30 Top of the Pops (m001yty5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


FRI 03:00 Top of the Pops (m001yty7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


FRI 03:30 Top of the Pops (m0002pf4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]