SATURDAY 08 JUNE 2024

SAT 19:00 How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears (b044z1k0)
Great Plains

Ray Mears explores how 500,000 square miles of flat, treeless grassland was the setting for some of the Wild West's most dramatic stories of Plains Indians, wagon trains, homesteaders and cattle drives.

Ray joins the Blackfeet Indian Nation as they demonstrate bareback riding skills before a ritual buffalo hunt and sacrifice, and learns how their ancestors were dependent upon the buffalo for their survival. He follows in the wagon ruts of the early pioneers along the Oregon Trail and hitches a ride on a prairie schooner with wagon master Kim Merchant. He discovers the stories of the early homesteaders who lived in sod-houses and farmed the wild grassland around them.

At a cattle auction in Dodge City he explores the story of the railways, cow-towns and the buffalo massacre. His journey across the Great Plains ends at Moore Ranch where he joins a long-horn cattle drive and learns about the life and myth of one of the Wild West's most iconic figures, the cowboy.


SAT 20:00 Castles: Britain's Fortified History (b04t6n19)
Instruments of Invasion

Sam Willis looks at the history of the castle from its first appearance with the Normans in 1066 to the longest siege on English soil at Kenilworth Castle 200 years later. The castle arrived as an instrument of invasion but soon became a weapon with which unruly barons challenged the Crown. Tintagel Castle, the place where King Arthur is said to have been conceived, is also on the itinerary. It remains one of the most evocative of castles to this day, drawing visitors from around the world with its tales of myth and legend.


SAT 21:00 Jana: Marked for Life (m001z7p0)
Series 1

Episode 1

Jana Berzelius begins her career as an aspirant prosecutor in Norrköping with the case of the murder of a high-ranking member of the Migration Board, concealing from her colleagues the fact that she knew the victim and believes that she can piece together the mystery of her own upbringing.

In Swedish with English Subtitles


SAT 21:50 Jana: Marked for Life (m001z7p2)
Series 1

Episode 2

The case of the murder of a senior migration official takes a mysterious turn when the main suspect is found dead with a enigmatic brand on his neck. Jana is driven to pursue the case with her uncompromising resolve since she herself has a similar scar.

In Swedish with English subtitles


SAT 22:40 Parkinson (m00204x1)
Barbara Woodhouse, Diana Rigg and Dirk Bogarde

Michael Parkinson is joined by Barbara Woodhouse, Diana Rigg and Dirk Bogarde.


SAT 23:40 Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way (m001zynw)
Come When Called

Barbara Woodhouse demonstrates the most vital exercise of all, which should preferably be taught at an early age before a dog becomes too interested in scents and other dogs. Barbara's training method involves a firm command in the right tone of voice and warm, welcoming praise.


SAT 00:05 Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way (m001zynz)
Advanced: Stand, Sit and Down

Barbara Woodhouse demonstrates an emergency exercise where the dog is required to stop instantly in the stand, sit or down position. Correct tone of voice plays a vital part.


SAT 00:30 Butterflies (p00hm21b)
Series 1

When Ria Met Leonard

Ria has enough to cope with: there is her husband Ben, who has his own hang-ups and her sons Adam and Russell, who are the cause of most of them. Then suddenly there's Leonard.


SAT 01:00 Not in Front of the Children (m001zyvy)
Episode of the 1960s sitcom starring Wendy Craig and Ronald Hines. The removal of the Corner family to their new home in the country is not without incident.


SAT 01:30 Castles: Britain's Fortified History (b04t6n19)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SAT 02:30 How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears (b044z1k0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]

SUNDAY 09 JUNE 2024

SUN 19:00 Life of a Mountain (m000rpmf)
A Year on Helvellyn

This spectacular film features a year in the life of the Lake District National Park’s most popular peak, Helvellyn. Three years in the making, award-winning film-maker Terry Abraham’s photography captures the beauty of the Lakeland fells and wildlife through the seasons and the insights of those that live by, care for and visit the mountain.

Sharing their wide-ranging expertise and passion for the peak, the film’s contributors create a picture of Helvellyn that combines nature, adventure sports, art, survival and history, and features an exhilarating RAF low-level fighter plane flight through its stunning and much-loved landscape.

This is the final instalment in Terry Abraham’s popular Lake District trilogy. His other two films feature Scafell Pike and Blencathra.


SUN 20:30 Inside Classical (m002053c)
Series 2

Brahms's Symphony No 4 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra perform a programme of music that spans three centuries: one of the great romantic symphonies by Brahms, a violin concerto with an American flavour by Samuel Barber and a splash of colour in a contemporary work by Sarah Gibson.

The guest conductor for this performance from Glasgow’s City Halls is New Zealand-born Gemma New, artistic director and principal conductor of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Written in the late 1930s, Samuel Barber’s romantic violin concerto has a distinctly American flavour. The soloist, American-based violinist Geneva Lewis, has performed with orchestras around the world and is currently one of BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists.

Sara Gibson’s Warp and Weft, composed in 2019, takes inspiration from Canadian-born feminist artist Miriam Schapiro, who questioned the lines between craft and fine art. The title refers to basic parts used in the handloom weaving process.

Brahms bucked the trend when he wrote his Fourth Symphony in 1885. While many romantic symphonies journey from darkness into light, Brahms begins in the gloom, and even at the end there’s little promise of hope, but in between he gives us beautiful glimpses of cheer and serenity. It’s honest and human music that has endured to this day.

Presented by Kate Molleson.


SUN 22:00 Renny Rye Remembers... Karaoke (m002053f)
Director Renny Rye looks back on the part he played in Karaoke, one of television’s most unusual commissions – a unique collaboration between the BBC and Channel 4, engineered by the writing force that was the late Dennis Potter.

Karaoke, along with its sister piece, Cold Lazarus, was broadcast in 1996 on both channels as a tribute Potter – the man behind someone of British television’s most celebrated and groundbreaking moments – who had written both dramas in the knowledge that he was soon to die of cancer.

Here, Renny Rye discusses how Karaoke fits alongside Potter’s other celebrated screenplays, looks back on the pressures that he faced in bringing Potter’s final works to reality and recalls his experiences working with an extraordinary cast, made up of some of the best of British acting talent, including Albert Finney, Keeley Hawes, Richard E Grant, Julie Christie, Anna Chancellor and Saffron Burrows.


SUN 22:15 Karaoke (p00xxf75)
Tuesday

Daniel Feeld, writer of film Karaoke, follows somebody similar to one of his screenplay characters to their place of work. Increasingly, fiction and reality start to merge.


SUN 23:05 Karaoke (p00xxfds)
Wednesday

Daniel Feeld's life is still unravelling, and his compulsive pursuit of the lovely Sandra Sollars lands him in hospital.


SUN 23:55 Karaoke (p00xxfm2)
Thursday

Daniel follows Sandra and meets her disfigured mother. Nick and Linda are entangled in a blackmail plot.


SUN 00:45 Karaoke (p00xxfrb)
Friday

Daniel knows that his time is very short so he is urgently putting his complicated mission into place.


SUN 01:50 Scuffles, Swagger and Shakespeare: The Hidden Story of English (m000b8ny)
The English language is spoken by 450 million people around the globe, with a further one billion using it as a second language. It is arguably Britain’s most famous export. The man often given credit for the global triumph of English, and the invention of many of our modern words, is William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s plays first hit the stage four centuries ago, as the explorers of Elizabethan England were laying the foundations for the British empire. It was this empire that would carry English around the world. Language historian and BBC New Generation Thinker Dr John Gallagher asks whether the real story of how English became a global linguistic superpower is more complex.

John begins by revealing that if you had stopped an Elizabethan on the streets and told them their language was going to become the most powerful one in the world, they would have laughed in your face. When Shakespeare began writing, the English language was obscure and England an isolated country. John’s quest to find out how English became a global language sees him investigate everything from what it was like to be an immigrant in Elizabethan Britain to how new technology is transforming our understanding of Shakespeare.


SUN 02:20 Life of a Mountain (m000rpmf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]

MONDAY 10 JUNE 2024

MON 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (m0002fs8)
Series 10

Birmingham to the Potteries

Armed with his Bradshaw’s guide, Michael Portillo reaches Birmingham and discovers how a radical reformer would make his mark on the city of a thousand trades.

At Highbury Hall, he finds Joseph Chamberlain’s splendid mansion home and hears how he established a political dynasty including a prime minister and a foreign secretary.

Next stop is Cradley Heath, at the time of his Bradshaw’s one of five chain-making towns in the West Midlands. Michael learns how 90 per cent of the chain workshops in England and Wales were located here and that female workers earned a pittance to produce goods in their homes. He discovers how discontent came to a head in 1910 and a Scottish woman led workers to strike for the first time.

A book on Railway Law for the Man in the Train is required reading for Michael as he travels to Landywood, where he engages in some detective work on behalf of its author, one George Edalji. Michael follows an investigation carried out by Arthur Conan Doyle in the early 1900s into a miscarriage of justice.

At the centre of Britain’s ceramic industry in Stoke-on-Trent, Michael visits Wedgwood, established by the Queen’s Potter Josiah Wedgwood in 1759 and visited in 1913 by King George V and Queen Mary. He hears how the royal couple used their visit to forge links with working people and thereby strengthened the monarchy. Touring the factory, Michael admires the exquisite decoration of the ceramic painters and tries his hand at clay spinning.


MON 19:30 Villages by the Sea (m000c799)
Series 1

Clovelly

Archaeologist Ben Robinson reveals the story of this Devon coastal gem’s transformation from fishing village to romantic Victorian seaside resort.

Our coastal villages are often seen as remote places for retreat and relaxation. However, they have often been on the front line of history - from the arrival of Christianity to battles with neighbours and nature, from slave trading to the birth of modern tourism.

Thanks to a powerful and pioneering woman, Clovelly found itself at the forefront of the Victorian seaside holiday revolution. Even today cars are banned and the village is privately owned, helping to preserve it as a reminder of a bygone age.


MON 20:00 Michael Palin and the Ladies Who Loved Matisse (p00b694n)
Michael Palin uncovers the tale of two wealthy American sisters, Etta and Claribel Cone, who, as patrons of Picasso and personal friends of Henri Matisse, amassed one of the world's finest collections of modern French art. The story takes him to Florence, Paris, Nice and the sisters' Baltimore apartment gallery.


MON 21:00 Easter Island Origins (m0020545)
They are some of the most famous and mysterious monuments on the planet. Nearly 900 giant stone heads scattered across a remote island in the middle of the Pacific. Now, brand new evidence is challenging everything we thought we knew about Easter Island’s awe-inspiring statues – and those who made them. Drawing on the latest science, this authoritative documentary radically rewrites the story of Easter Island.


MON 22:00 The Sky at Night (m002053k)
Cosmic Ghosts

This month, The Sky at Night has a spooky twist. Across the universe, there are hidden objects that we can’t see, but astronomers and scientists still believe they’re out there. To find out how we know that these mysterious objects exist, the team are going ghost-hunting. Cosmic ghost-hunting.

Prof Chris Lintott and Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock are at Provan Hall, one of the oldest buildings in Glasgow and the site of several supposed ghost sightings across its 550-year history. But they aren’t looking for anything supernatural. Instead, they’re meeting the scientists and astronomers trying to solve some of the universe’s greatest mysteries by finding new ways to sense what surrounds us in the cosmos.

In the medieval rooms of Provan Hall, Chris meets Dr Olivia Jones from the UK Astronomy Centre and discovers how a tool often employed by ghost hunters is actually great for finding objects hidden in the dust of the cosmos. He also meets Prof Tessa Baker from the University of Portsmouth, who shows him how ripples in space-time are helping scientists to detect new, unseen cosmic events. And while scanning the house for spooky sounds, Maggie hears a voice from the past, which leads her to uncover the wonderful work of Vera Rubin – a trailblazing astronomer who helped to prove the existence of dark matter.

Across the country, and over a kilometre further below the Earth’s surface, guest presenter Prof Chamkaur Ghag is at the Boulby Underground Laboratory. While there, he discovers how the incredible research site has changed since Patrick Moore and The Sky at Night team visited 20 years ago and meets some of the Boulby team who are working on the hunt for ghostly dark matter particles.

Meanwhile, Pete Lawrence is at the Bedford School Observatory to show us how to find and photograph inky, ghost-like objects in the sky known as dark nebulae, and to tell us what to look out for in the night sky over the next month.


MON 22:30 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.


MON 23:30 imagine... (b007gt9l)
Spring 2007

Gilbert and George: No Surrender

Arts series presented by Alan Yentob. Over the last 40 years, British artists Gilbert and George have fascinated, outraged, delighted and confounded the art establishment. Since their first appearance as 'living sculptures' in the late 1960s, their work has persistently taken a provocative, often uncomfortable look at both their own lives and the life of the city that continues to inspire their art - London.

Alan is invited into their East End home, where the couple have lived together for four decades, for an intimate look at what is the most unique, productive and long-standing partnership in contemporary art.


MON 00:20 Great British Railway Journeys (m0002fs8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 00:50 Villages by the Sea (m000c799)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 01:20 Easter Island Origins (m0020545)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


MON 02:20 Michael Palin and the Ladies Who Loved Matisse (p00b694n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

TUESDAY 11 JUNE 2024

TUE 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (m0002jn2)
Series 10

Newry to Portadown

Steered by his Edwardian Bradshaw’s Guide, Michael Portillo navigates his way by rail – and ferry - across Northern Ireland and the Scottish Highlands from Newry to Argyll and Bute.

Early 20th-century Britain was reeling from industrial strife and suffragette outrages, but the biggest crisis of all was the conflict in Ireland. Beginning in Newry, Michael finds a specially chartered train would deliver demonstrators campaigning for Irish Home Rule to a rally in the town.

On the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic at Glaslough, Michael is amused to discover a christening robe belonging to Sir Winston Churchill and hears how he and his American mother saved the impressive Castle Leslie.

Michael finds himself in a sticky situation at an Edwardian bakery in Portadown when he attempts to make an Irish staple, soda bread. At Scarva, Michael discovers the importance of Irish linen for aircraft during the First World War, and in the hangars of the Ulster Aviation Society he learns how a replica Ferguson Flyer from 1909 was built.


TUE 19:30 Villages by the Sea (m000c7m1)
Series 1

Lindisfarne

Archaeologist Ben Robinson discovers the story of the monks and villagers of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, off the Northumberland coast.

Our coastal villages are often seen as remote places for retreat and relaxation. However, they have often been on the front line of history - from the arrival of Christianity to battles with neighbours and nature; from slave trading to the birth of modern tourism.

From Holy Island, monks spread Christianity to the rest of Northern England and created one of Britain’s finest treasures – the Lindisfarne Gospels. Viking attacks caused the monks to flee but the village survived. Today the community has to share their village with thousands of tourists.


TUE 20:00 Rigs of Nigg (m000yybp)
It is the early 70s, and oil has been discovered in the North Sea. The UK needs rigs and needs them fast. Their search for a location to build the platforms settles on the sleepy Highland bay of Nigg on the Cromarty Firth, and a way of life is changed for ever.

Rigs of Nigg is the story of how over 5,000 men, sought locally and from across the globe, came together to create structures previously thought to be unbuildable and to withstand elements considered unsurvivable. But the biggest impact was on Nigg and the surrounding villages. Farm work was no longer the mainstay, jobs in the Nigg yard paid four times as much and nothing would be the same again. Heady days of tough work and hard living set some up for life but also took their toll on many.


TUE 21:00 One Foot in the Grave (b007blqq)
Series 1

Alive and Buried

Sitcom about grumpy senior citizen Victor Meldrew, whose attitude lands him in comical predicaments.

Replaced at work by a box, Victor embarks on his enforced retirement but finds it exasperatingly difficult to adapt to this directionless new existence. As he struggles without his security guard job, he begins magnifying mundane aspects of everyday life into major dramas.


TUE 21:30 Butterflies (p00hm23v)
Series 1

Breaking the Silence

Ben and Russell decide to talk after a year of silence. It is not as happy an experience as Ria would have wished. She has also lied to Leonard about her age.


TUE 22:00 Storyville (m0020541)
Copa ’71: The Lost Lionesses - Storyville

In August 1971, football teams from England, Argentina, Mexico, France, Denmark and Italy gathered in Mexico City for a watershed tournament. With lavish sponsorship, extensive TV coverage, merchandise on every street corner and over 100,000 roaring fans at the historic Azteca stadium, media outlets treated the players like rock stars.

Despite being one of the most groundbreaking moments in footballing history, most people have never heard of it - because the players were all women.

This is the extraordinary story of an extraordinary tournament, told through the fearless voices of the women who took part and including recently uncovered and never-seen-before archive footage.

The tournament was the flame that lit the touchpaper for the explosion of women’s football around the globe and in the UK. It was one of the catalysts that led to the UEFA Women's Euro 2022 final, when England beat Germany 2-1.


TUE 23:20 Fever Pitch: The Rise of the Premier League (p09mqvrt)
Series 1

Episode 1

The story of how football's Premier League was formed, told by its stars. What began in 1992 as a controversial breakaway has become the most watched sporting competition in the world.


TUE 00:20 Fever Pitch: The Rise of the Premier League (p09mqvrw)
Series 1

Episode 2

With back-to-back titles in the first two seasons of the Premier League, Alex Ferguson has his eyes set on building a legacy at the seemingly invincible Manchester United.

Thirty miles away at unfashionable Blackburn Rovers, multimillionaire owner Jack Walker still has other ideas. Having finished fourth and then second to United, he and manager Kenny Dalglish are determined to go one better. With a personal fortune of £360 million, he has the money and the appetite to spend his way to success. After buying Alan Shearer for a British transfer record, he goes one better and smashes it again by signing Chris Sutton for £5m. But the rapid injection of money into the game – players’ salaries are hitting £10,000 a week - is starting to create a ‘them and us’ divide with the fans.

The David and Goliath title race between Blackburn and United is too close to call until one cold January night halfway through the season, when Eric Cantona launches himself into the terraces of Selhurst Park and kung-fu kicks a Crystal Palace supporter who’s verbally abused him. It’s reported Cantona has been provoked by a racist slur, but his actions cause national outrage, and the threat of a prison term looms for the mercurial Frenchman.

Despite the repackaging of football and the fanfare of the new Premier League, the sinister underbelly of racism remains.


TUE 01:20 Great British Railway Journeys (m0002jn2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


TUE 01:50 Villages by the Sea (m000c7m1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 02:20 Rigs of Nigg (m000yybp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

WEDNESDAY 12 JUNE 2024

WED 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (m0002jrh)
Series 10

Belfast to Portrush

Michael Portillo continues his rail journey through Northern Ireland steered by his Bradshaw’s Guide. In Belfast’s grand Edwardian City Hall, Michael investigates the scene of a watershed moment in Irish history and hears how thousands of Ulster Protestants were mobilised by train to sign a document pledging opposition to Home Rule for Ireland.

Michael follows Belfast author CS Lewis into the wardrobe to reach the magical world of Narnia and learns how religion influenced Lewis's work. From Antrim, he heads to the shores of Lough Neagh, the biggest lake in the British Isles, where he finds the largest wild eel fishery in Europe and joins a fisherman and his wife for a traditional eel meal.

On the greens of Portrush, Michael visits the Royal Portrush Golf Club to find out how Ireland’s fair sex dominated the fairways at the time of his guide.


WED 19:30 Villages by the Sea (m000c79y)
Series 1

Robin Hood's Bay

Archaeologist Ben Robinson reveals the story of smuggling intrigue and bravery on the Yorkshire coast.


WED 20:00 Full Circle with Michael Palin (p00xb87g)
Borneo and Java

Michael Palin circles the Pacific Rim through 18 countries. After a journey on a rusty ferry through the dangerous Sulu Sea, he arrives in Borneo at monsoon time. From the rainforest, he heads off to the long houses of the Iban tribesmen and the secret heart of Borneo. Across the equator in Java, the most densely populated island in the world, he visits the largest monument in the southern hemisphere.


WED 20:50 Michael Palin: The Art of Travel (m001kyrs)
Series 1

LMS

Michael Palin takes an imaginary journey to Blackpool via the LMS posters of the 1920s and 1930s.


WED 21:00 Rise of the Nazis (m001qpc2)
The Manhunt

Most Wanted

At the end of the Second World War, British troops are confronted with the true horrors of Nazi crimes when they discover Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Preparations begin for a trial at Nuremberg, but not all high-ranking Nazis have been captured. The job of tracking them down falls to Allied soldiers.


WED 22:00 Don Warrington and Tony Jordan Remember... Death in Paradise (m002054k)
For over ten years and more than 100 episodes, Death in Paradise has delivered fans an irresistible cocktail of sun, sea and sin - demonstrating through a succession of murder-mysteries that the ugly side of human nature is ever-present, even in the beautiful setting of the Caribbean.

Watching over events from the very start, and overseeing the activities of the show’s changing cast of leading detective inspectors, has been Police Commissioner Selwyn Patterson, played by the much-loved actor Don Warrington.

Here, Don joins forces with acclaimed TV writer and producer of Death in Paradise Tony Jordan to look back on the show’s origins, share some stories from behind the scenes and discuss what it is - beside the beaches and blue skies - that has made the series such an enduring hit.


WED 22:15 Death in Paradise (b03qglq4)
Series 3

Episode 1

A university reunion party that DI Richard Poole is attending is brought to an abrupt halt when one of the group is murdered with an ice pick.

With the case proving particularly sensitive, a new British detective, DI Humphrey Goodman, arrives on the island to help the team get to the bottom of the mysterious case. As the station's newest recruit with his own set of methods, will Humphrey be able to adjust to his new team and surroundings?


WED 23:15 Fever Pitch: The Rise of the Premier League (p09mqvry)
Series 1

Episode 3

With a moment of audacious brilliance, David Beckham elevates himself into the national consciousness. His legendary 60-yard wonder goal from the half-way line against Wimbledon becomes the moment that changes his life.

In this episode we explore the rise of the celebrity footballer, symbolised by Beckham in the mid ‘90s. He’s part of a much-feted new breed of footballers who are starting to resemble rock stars more than sportsmen. When Beckham starts a relationship with ‘Posh Spice’ Victoria Adams, the pair are catapulted onto the pages of every gossip column.

But for every David Beckham there has to be a casualty who isn’t quite so fortunate.

Keith Gillespie was once dubbed ‘the new George Best’ and yet his journey through the 90s couldn’t be more divergent from that of David Beckham. The pair had been friends and were both members of United’s so-called Class of 92 who went on to form the backbone of their success through the next decade

After a whirlwind start at Manchester United, Gillespie was deemed surplus to requirements and off-loaded to title rivals Newcastle United. While there was no drop in his form, the loneliness of living in a strange town away from the Man United youth team players he’d grown up with, led Gillespie to seek solace in the local bookmakers. In another era Gillespie may have been able to ask for help but his gambling habit went from bad to worse before he was inevitably “outed’ by a tabloid newspaper.

On the pitch, Gillespie and Beckham each have their sights set on their first Premier League winners medal. The 1995/96 season concludes with a dramatic showdown – either Newcastle or Manchester United side will be crowned champions on the final day.


WED 00:15 Fever Pitch: The Rise of the Premier League (p09mqvs0)
Series 1

Episode 4

Having won four out of five titles since the start of the Premier League, Manchester United and Alex Ferguson seem unstoppable. In London, Arsenal have barely had a look-in, but vice chairman David Dein has been busy plotting.

He introduces an unknown bespectacled Frenchman to the waiting press at Highbury and announces that he is Arsenal’s new manager. Arsene Wenger looks more like a history teacher than a football manager, and the players have never heard of him. Yet Wenger is about to have a huge impact, not just on the Premier League but on English football, by introducing modern coaching techniques as well as lifestyle and dietary improvements.

The first thing he does is put a stop to the drinking culture – the players’ ‘Tuesday Club’ is consigned to history. He also brings in exciting foreign players from Europe - Patrick Vieira, Marc Overmars, Nicolas Anelka - to play alongside Arsenal stalwarts like captain Tony Adams. On the pitch, Arsenal are turbo-charged, and it’s not long before Alex Ferguson feels the imminent threat, a new rival intent on destroying the legacy he’s building at Manchester United. It’s clear Ferguson is rattled by the new interloper, and the rivalry and tension between the two men is replicated by the players when the two sides meet. It marks the beginning of a ten-year chapter in the Premier league which would become known as The Feud.

But off the pitch, Manchester United’s supporters have another battle on their hands – this time in the boardroom. Sky’s Rupert Murdoch announces an audacious £623m bid to buy the club, which has been accepted by the shareholders. Large swathes of United’s fans are incensed and launch a desperate rear-guard action to try and fight the sale of their beloved club.


WED 01:15 Full Circle with Michael Palin (p00xb87g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 02:05 Great British Railway Journeys (m0002jrh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


WED 02:35 Rise of the Nazis (m001qpc2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

THURSDAY 13 JUNE 2024

THU 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (m0002jvp)
Series 10

Glasgow to Cumbrae

Michael Portillo continues his journey through western Scotland by exploring the industrial heartland of Glasgow and its mighty River Clyde before taking the ferry to the island of Cumbrae.

With his early 20th-century Bradshaw’s guide in hand, he is put to work behind the scenes at Glasgow’s circular subway, explores the future of shipbuilding on the Clyde and hears how one woman led a successful mass protest against high rents in the city’s notorious tenements.

On the island of Cumbrae, Michael investigates a forgotten Scottish expedition to the Antarctic and discovers the beauty of intertidal marine life.


THU 19:30 Villages by the Sea (m000c78p)
Series 1

Walberswick

Archaeologist Ben Robinson discovers the surprising story of this former medieval port on the Suffolk coast.

Coastal villages are often seen as remote places for retreat and relaxation. However, they have often been on the front line of history - from the arrival of Christianity to battles with neighbours and nature, from slave trading to the birth of modern tourism.

Today, Walberswick is a favourite coastal retreat for writers, artists and day trippers. But for centuries, the village lurched from prosperity to poverty. In medieval times, it fought a bitter battle for supremacy against the neighbouring port of Dunwich and finally fell victim to politics, fire and the might of the sea.


THU 20:00 A House Through Time (m001043c)
Series 4

Episode 4

The final episode opens at the outbreak of the Second World War, and our house is home to the Wood family. While father John serves as an ARP warden, teenage son Geoffrey joins the Merchant Navy and finds his ship is a target for German U-boats.

The next residents are Yorkshireman Michael and his Greek wife Popi. Tracing their story, David uncovers a romance forged in war-torn Europe that leads the couple to England via Italy and eventually to a bustling neighbourhood of New York City.

As Britain lifts out of post-war austerity, the house is bought by Alan and Edith Weir. They both work on famous newspaper the Yorkshire Post. In Edith, David discovers a woman with surprising talents.

Finally, there’s an emotional return to Number 5 for a group of students who shared our house around the millennium, witnessing first-hand Leeds’s rebirth from industrial decline to a vibrant modern city.


THU 21:00 King Otto and Football’s Greek Gods (m002053h)
In the summer of 2004, audiences looked on in disbelief as the Greek national football team, who had never previously won a single match or even scored a goal in a major tournament, took down the giants of world football to become the unlikeliest of European champions.

The architect behind this unprecedented triumph was legendary German football coach ‘King’ Otto Rehhagel. After accomplishing every major success in Germany, he made the bold decision to leave all he knew behind and work in a foreign country with the underachieving Greek national team. This is the story of how these two contrasting cultures came together to speak the same language and write a new chapter of Greek mythology.


THU 22:15 The Graduate (m000zpby)
Benjamin Braddock is a shy, aimless college graduate. His well-to-do parents and their friends welcome him home with great fanfare, but he feels listless, lacks ambition and can't share their enthusiasm. When his parents' friend Mrs Robinson takes an interest in him, it kick-starts an unusual summer.


THU 00:00 The Sky at Night (m002053k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Monday]


THU 00:30 Queen Victoria's Letters: A Monarch Unveiled (b04p1vx1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 on Monday]


THU 01:30 Great British Railway Journeys (m0002jvp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


THU 02:00 A House Through Time (m001043c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

FRIDAY 14 JUNE 2024

FRI 19:00 Top of the Pops (m002053x)
Mark Goodier presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 28 March 1996 and featuring Ken Doh, Bis, Mark Snow, Gina G, Cast, PJ & Duncan, Dubstar, Wet Wet Wet and The Prodigy.


FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (m0020540)
Dale Winton presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 4 April 1996 and featuring Kadoc, Ocean Colour Scene, Foo Fighters, Gina G, Lionel Richie, Pulp, Mark Morrison and The Prodigy.


FRI 20:00 Top of the Pops (m00030wr)
Peter Powell and Simon Bates present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 11 June 1987, and featuring John Farnham, Bruce Willis, Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Tom Jones, Whitesnake, ABC, Johnny Logan, Whitney Houston and Jody Watley.


FRI 20:30 Top of the Pops (b080193m)
Simon Bates presents the weekly pop chart show, first broadcast on 17 June 1982. Includes appearances by Natasha, Roxy Music, Echo & the Bunnymen, Duran Duran, ABC, Bow Wow Wow, Queen, Toyah and Adam Ant.


FRI 21:00 Disco at the BBC (m001tky9)
Volume Two

Another slice of disco delight with a celebration of nightclub classics taken from the very best of the BBC’s archives, including Rock Your Baby, Ring My Bell and Yes Sir, I Can Boogie.


FRI 22:00 Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution (m001tkyp)
Series 1

Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now

A look at the high watermark of disco in the middle of the 1970s, from Donna Summer’s anthemic, provocative single Love to Love You Baby to Sylvester’s You Make Me Feel Mighty Real. At a time when the post-civil rights generation struggled to be heard politically and socially, their call for liberation was found in disco.


FRI 23:00 TOTP2 (b007v15w)
Boogie Fever: A TOTP2 Disco Special

Get your dancing shoes on for a show of disco mania as Steve Wright and the TOTP2 team take you back to the dancefloor for some boogie fever. The Bee Gees are here in all their glory, along with Gloria Gaynor, Liquid Gold, Sylvester, The Village People, The Weather Girls and The Three Degrees.

There's classic dance fodder from Chic, George McCrae, Hi-Tension, Heatwave, The JALN Band, Earth Wind and Fire, Tina Charles, The Gibson Brothers and Edwin Starr, disco pop from Blondie, Yazz, Boney M and Linx, while Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Infernal bring the story up to date.

And then there's the Disco Duck. Sorry...


FRI 00:30 Sounds of the 70s 2 (b01jv6sd)
Disco - Ain't No Stopping Us Now

Disco was all pervasive in the mid and early 70s. And while towards the end of the decade punk stole the headlines, disco still had the high street. Everyone was into it and getting down on it at the local discotheque. Join us in a celebration of all things disco including performances by The Jacksons, Thelma Houston, Sylvester, Carl Douglas, George McCrae, Sister Sledge, McFadden and Whitehead, Eruption and Gloria Gaynor.


FRI 01:00 Disco at the BBC (m001tky9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 02:00 Top of the Pops (m002053x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


FRI 02:30 Top of the Pops (m0020540)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


FRI 03:00 Top of the Pops (m00030wr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


FRI 03:30 Top of the Pops (b080193m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]