SATURDAY 03 AUGUST 2024

SAT 19:00 Noel's House Party (m0021s21)
Series 3

Episode 19

Noel Edmonds is joined at his country house in Crinkley Bottom by special guest Bob Monkhouse, there's a Gotcha for Sue Barker and a Gunge battle between Ross King and Alan Titchmarsh. Plus the Big Pork Pie, the Panel Game and a visit from NTV.


SAT 20:00 Larry Grayson's Generation Game (m0021s24)
Family couples from all over the country join Larry Grayson and Isla St Clair to compete in a test of their general knowledge, skill and ingenuity. From 1981.


SAT 21:00 Blankety Blank Classic (m0021s26)
Series 8

Episode 4

Les Dawson hosts another edition of the comedy quiz show with celebrity guests. On the panel are Des Lynam, Faith Brown, Chris Serle, Sally James, Mike Reid and Pat Coombs.


SAT 21:35 Bob's Full House (m0021s29)
Series 4

Episode 5

Bob Monkhouse presents another edition of the TV bingo quiz show with exciting prizes to be won.


SAT 22:10 What We Were Watching (m000l9vc)
Summer TV Classics

Join Grace Dent on a televisual trip of a lifetime as she explores the sights, sounds and schedules of the great British summer. Grace’s epic journey covers everything that informs our attitudes to summertime, from the travel shows of the 60s and 70s, which first brought the world’s finest resorts into our living rooms, to Del and Rodney Trotter fooling about abroad and the high jinks of Hi-de-Hi!

She explores the influence that holiday camp staples like beauty contests and talent shows had on primetime programmes like Seaside Special, which attracted stars as iconic as Abba and Grace Jones. Away from the glitz and glamour, there’s a look at the notorious Notting Hill Carnival of 1976, where a celebration of colour ended in rioting that changed Britain’s race laws forever, and a trip to Ibiza in the 80s, where young Brits were discovering new ways of getting away from it all. Also abroad are the then-young cast of EastEnders, with a young Grant Mitchell showing how to hit the clubs of Spain in epic style – and of course, sun, sea and soap means a look at the show that really burned the BBC – Eldorado.


SAT 23:10 Parkinson (m0021s2c)
Barbara Castle, Les Dawson and Cleo Laine

Michael Parkinson in conversation with Barbara Castle, Les Dawson and Cleo Laine.


SAT 00:10 Talking Comedy (b05qt7vj)
Les Dawson

A laughter-filled look back at much-loved deadpan comic Les Dawson's appearances over the years on a selection of the BBC's talk shows.


SAT 00:40 The Many Faces of... (b018nvwc)
Series 1

Les Dawson

Les Dawson was one of Britain's all time great comedy talents, best known as a comedian but also a talented musician, writer and actor. This programme traces his career, with familiar favourite TV clips and some rare gems from the archives. Together with interviews from friends, relatives and colleagues, the programme unpicks the secrets of his enduring legacy nearly 20 years after his untimely death.

After 'discovery' on the Opportunity Knocks talent show in the 60s, he quickly became a regular face on TV, hosting comedy-led variety shows like Sez Les and The Les Dawson Show. His trademarks were short, pithy jokes, usually targeting his wife or mother in law, long verbose monologues and, perhaps most famously, piano recitals that went hilariously off key.

His reputation attracted guest appearances from some unexpected fans like John Cleese and Shirley Bassey, and he created an overweight dance troupe, The Roly Polys.

The programme shows how his career unfolded and illustrates the different facets of his comedy genius. John Cleese remembers their unlikely friendship, modern comedy stars Robert Webb and Russell Kane talk about his inspiration and Dawson's widow Tracy recalls their marriage and his joy at being a father late in life.


SAT 01:40 Keeping Up Appearances (b01sp831)
Series 1

The New Vicar

Sitcom. Hyacinth has asked the new vicar to tea and - in her usual meticulous way - she has organised the event down to the last sugar lump. Events take a sudden turn.


SAT 02:10 Butterflies (p00hm2nt)
Series 2

Worrying

After a row with Russell and Adam, Ben suffers from pains in the chest and thinks he's having a heart attack.


SAT 02:40 What We Were Watching (m000l9vc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:10 today]

SUNDAY 04 AUGUST 2024

SUN 19:00 Discovering... (b0bs67c1)
Series 1

Rhapsody in Blue - George Gershwin

George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (1924) is a landmark in 20th-century music. Gershwin drew upon the jazz music enveloping New York City in the 1920s to create the 'American Sound', which would inspire generations of composers in years to come.

Josie D'Arby presents the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with pianist Marc Andre Hamelin, conducted by Thomas Dausgaard, performing the piece in full from Glasgow's City Halls.

Through conversations with the Dausgaard, Hamelin and members of the orchestra, and interviews with jazz pianist and composer Julian Joseph and broadcaster, critic and biographer David Benedict, the programme delves deep into Gershwin's swinging salute to the city that never sleeps, exploring the composer's desire to be taken seriously beyond Broadway, and the improvisational approach which drew together so many different musical influences to create this iconic and and much-loved piece of music.


SUN 20:00 BBC Proms (m0021s7b)
2024

John Wilson’s American Greats at the Proms

A glittering programme including Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which celebrates its centenary this year, plus Barber’s Adagio for Strings, recorded live from the Royal Albert Hall with the all-star Sinfonia of London.

Tonight’s concert of scintillating American classics is conducted by audience favourite John Wilson and also includes Copland’s ballet Billy the Kid suite and John Adams’s Harmonielehre. Georgia Mann presents.


SUN 22:20 Gershwin's Summertime: The Song That Conquered the World (b017nf05)
An intriguing investigation into the extraordinary life of Gershwin's classic composition, Summertime. One of the most covered songs in the world, it has been recorded in almost every style of music - from jazz to opera, rock to reggae, soul to samba. Its musical adaptability is breathtaking, but Summertime also resonates on a deep emotional level. This visually and sonically engaging film explores the composition's magical properties, examining how this song has, with stealth, captured the imagination of the world.

From its complex birth in 1935 as a lullaby in Gershwin's all-black opera Porgy and Bess, this film traces the hidden history of Summertime, focusing on key recordings, including those by Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Mahalia Jackson, Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald. It reveals how musicians have projected their own dreams and desires onto the song, reimagining Summertime throughout the 20th century as a civil rights prayer, a hippie lullaby, an ode to seduction and a modern freedom song.

Back in the 1930s, Gershwin never dreamt of the global impact Summertime would have. But as this film shows, it has magically tapped into something deep inside us all - nostalgia and innocence, sadness and joy, and our intrinsic desire for freedom. Full of evocative archive footage as well as a myriad versions of Summertime - from the celebrated to the obscure - the film tells the surprising and illuminating tale behind this world-famous song.


SUN 23:20 imagine... (b0c2jw5z)
2019

Bill Viola: The Road to St Paul's

Bill Viola is renowned the world over as a pioneer of video art. As the Royal Academy in London mounts a major exhibition of his vast and immersive installations, alongside works by Michelangelo, imagine... charts Viola's career over 12 years and follows him as he creates his most high-profile commission to date, Mary and Martyrs, a permanent installation for St Paul's Cathedral.

Gerry Fox's film follows Viola on set as he films, with stunt gear and pyrotechnics, his striking visual tableaux in fields, salt lakes and studios. Viola talks candidly about his preoccupations with life, death and suffering, alongside his wife and collaborator Kira Perov.


SUN 00:30 Kill Your TV: Jim Moir's Weird World of Video Art (m000bpjw)
Jim Moir, aka Vic Reeves, explores video art, revealing how different generations hacked the tools of television to pioneer new ways of creating art that could be beautiful, bewildering and wildly experimental. Jim argues that underpinning much of this work is an urge to question our modern, screen-based world: ‘When artists get hold of cameras, things get interesting.’

With contributions from leading British artists such as Isaac Julien and Rachel Maclean, Jim shows how the arrival of the portable video camera in the 1960s allowed artists to create work that set out to take on the power of corporate media. New York-based artist Nam June Paik, credited as video art’s inventor, once declared, ‘television has been attacking us all our lives - now we can attack it back.’

With the arrival of video art in the UK in the 1970s, British artists discovered that the instant playback of the video camera gave them a level of control not possible with film, and led to a creative explosion, from works of cosmic abstraction to feminist visions and Dadaist TV pranks.

Jim looks at the tradition of performance art and sees how artists used the latest developments, from home video to artificial intelligence, in their work. And he explores, with the arrival of the epic video installations of the 90s and early millennium, how this outsider art form became part of the creative establishment, as well as a purpose-built platform for our screen-obsessed world.


SUN 01:30 Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema (m000rpkv)
Series 3

Cult Movies

Mark Kermode invites you on an entertaining journey into the weird and wonderful world of cult movies, filled with some of the strangest, most truly original and unexpected moments in cinema.

Film-makers don’t decide what becomes a cult movie, argues Mark. We - the audience - do. Mark looks at the qualities a film needs to acquire cult status, and the main types of cult movie, from films that are so bad they’re good, to groundbreaking masterpieces of foreign language cinema.

Some cult films set out to shock and break taboos; others are camp classics embraced by audiences who find new or hidden meanings in them. Mark also explores the strange phenomenon of cult films about actual cults, and looks at the future of cult cinema in an age when even the most obscure and offbeat movie is just a download away.


SUN 02:30 Discovering... (b0bs67c1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]

MONDAY 05 AUGUST 2024

MON 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (m000d24m)
Series 11

Kielder Forest to Edinburgh

Steered by his 1936 Bradshaw's Guide, Michael Portillo is in Northumbria en route to the Highlands.

On this leg, he explores Kielder Forest, beginning at the County Show in Stocksfield. Michael discovers what lay behind a national initiative to plant one of the largest man-made woodlands in Europe.

Crossing the border to Scotland, Michael arrives in the weaving town of Hawick to visit Lovat Mill, where, in the 1930s, tweed was big business. A brightly -coloured new design is being prepared.

Boarding the recently-restored Scottish Borders Railway at Galashiels, crossing the Newbattle Viaduct, Michael travels to Edinburgh. In the Scottish capital, he investigates the formation of a new political party during the 1930s and visits the spectacular Scottish parliament building, opened in 1999.

In Morningside, Michael goes to the movies and in the front stalls at the Dominion cinema, he finds out about the father of documentary, John Grierson.


MON 19:30 Gareth Edwards’s Great Welsh Adventure (m0009hyp)
Series 1

Episode 1

Gareth Edwards, once voted the greatest rugby player of all time, is not quite so coordinated when put in charge of a seventy-foot narrowboat. Now in his 70s, the rugby legend is busier than ever and constantly racing from one thing to the next. Which is why his wife, childhood sweetheart Maureen, has determined he needs to chill out more. She’s hatched a plan to whisk him away to explore the four Welsh canals. As no narrowboat is allowed to go more than three miles an hour, she figures that exploring the Welsh canals is the one way to finally get him to relax. But the plan is not entirely successful as Gareth’s stress levels go through the roof once he is in charge of his narrowboat. Even though everything around them happens slowly, avoiding hitting obstacles along the way proves no easy feat. Maureen, meanwhile, has some previous experience of driving a barge so knows the perils but also struggles when she jumps in the driving seat. After a pub lunch, Gareth and Maureen return to find their boat has drifted off and blocked the entire canal.

Somehow, Wales’s much-loved couple still find time to appreciate the breathtaking scenery. The Llangollen canal is one of the most scenic canals in Britain, with stunning landscapes and the 300m long Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. The aqueduct was designed by Thomas Telford in 1795 and carries the canal over the River Dee on 19 vast arches. In its day it was radical new technology. Even now it’s not for the faint-hearted, and a good head for heights is needed before setting out to cross the 200-year-old structure.

Gareth takes an opportunity to catch up with an old friend who lives near the canal. Dai Davies was goalkeeper for Wales between 1969 and 1987, but he and Gareth go back further than that. While young men, still dreaming of sporting success, they were flatmates. Now Dai has left international sporting success behind him to focus on alternative therapies. Maureen hopes Dai will finally manage to slow Gareth down. Even if she doesn’t succeed, this warm and funny duo will have still enjoyed some of the best landscapes you can imagine on this spectacular route.


MON 20:00 Art of France (b08f1bw0)
Series 1

This Is the Modern World

In the final episode, Andrew begins with the impressionists. He plunges into one of the most wildly creative periods in the history of art, when France was changing at a rapid pace and angry young artists would reinvent how to paint, finding their muses in the bars, brothels and cabarets of belle epoque Paris and turning the world of art on its head. Monet, Degas and friends launched a febrile conversation about the role of painting in the modern world that would pave the way for just about every modern art movement of note, from the cubists to the Fauves, from the surrealists to the existentialists and from conceptual artists to the abstract expressionists.


MON 21:00 Rebuilding Notre-Dame (m0016v1h)
The Next Chapter

Three years after the devastating fire, Lucy Worsley has exclusive access to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris at a key turning point of the restoration. Work to rebuild and restore the monument is being ramped up in a bid to meet the ambitious deadline to reopen it to the public in 2024.

Visiting Notre-Dame aged 16 inspired Lucy to work with historical buildings; this is a once-in-a-career opportunity to witness the rebirth of an icon close to her heart. Scaffolding now fills the interior of the cathedral, giving Lucy and the team unprecedented close-up access to every inch of the structure. Lucy meets scientists, historians and craftspeople working to return the 850-year-old Gothic masterpiece to its former glory.

The fire coated Notre-Dame with tons of toxic lead dust, so specialists are now decontaminating the site. Unique access to the stunning rose windows allows Lucy and the stained-glass historians to uncover the mysteries of these enigmatic 13th-century works of art. An unforeseen legacy of the fire threatens to destroy the remaining vaulting, so the team must develop an ingenious solution to save the stonework.

The loss of the roof during the fire reveals hundreds of large iron staples embedded in the stone along the top of the walls. Never seen before in Gothic architecture, this ancient construction practice could have helped Notre-Dame stand strong in the aftermath of the fire. And the incredible task of sourcing and cutting two-thousand perfect oaks gets underway to rebuild the world’s most complex medieval timber structure - Notre-Dame’s extraordinary roof and spire.


MON 22:00 Paris (b007rtt7)
Series 1

Bohemian Rhapsody

Art historian Sandrine Voillet tells the story of Paris in the 20th century. How it embraced technology (the Lumiere brothers, Louis Renault and the Metro), counter-culture (Picasso, Josephine Baker and Serge Gainsbourg) and immigration to preserve its reputation as a lighthouse city for the world.

But it was not plain sailing. Resistance to modernisation, the Nazi occupation of France and rioting in the banlieues tell a darker story and reveal problems that remain unresolved. Along the way, Sandrine meets Picasso’s grandson and Jane Birkin.


MON 23:00 Becoming Matisse (m000hqt7)
Henri Matisse is one of the most beloved painters of the 20th century. Best known for his cut-outs – childlike images that he cut directly from sheets of blazing colour - Matisse wanted his art to transcend the darkness and violence of the modern age. This alone has often seen him written off as a populist crowd-pleaser, not really a serious artist. Yet what we now tend to forget is that at the beginning of his career, Matisse was a rebel and a revolutionary - one of the first artists to tear up the rules of western art to bring it into the modern world. Turning his back on 500 years of academic tradition, Matisse became the first avant-garde artist of the 20th century and was considered so shocking that he was ridiculed by everyone – by the critics and the public, even by many of his fellow artists.

With interviews and animations and using Matisse’s words, taken from his diaries and letters, this film sees Matisse’s great-granddaughter Sophie Matisse tell the tumultuous story of his early life. Matisse picked up a paintbrush at the late age of 21, and the next 15 years saw him turn his back on the bourgeois aspirations of his parents and teachers, suffer extraordinary financial insecurity and family drama that nearly ended his career, and create a series of such notorious public scandals that he came to be known as ‘the wild beast’, an artistic savage whose work threatened the very values of western civilisation.

Retracing key places and moments in his biography – from Bohain-en-Vermandois, the town of his birth, to Paris, where he moved to try his luck at art school, and Corsica and Collioure, a fishing village on the Spanish border where he made his artistic breakthrough - Sophie looks closely at how this period affected his work and how the Matisse the public have come to know – the master of colour and light - was forged in response to the adversity and public humiliation of his early life.

Above all, with special access to family photographs, letters and diaries, Sophie shows that without the support of his immediate family, most notably his wife Amelie and his three children, Matisse would not have become the artist we know and love today.


MON 00:00 Art on the BBC (m0013c82)
Series 2

Van Gogh - Life and Art

Art historian Kate Bryan examines six decades of BBC archive to create a television history of the man who has become the embodiment of the ‘tortured artist’, Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh was 37 when he shot himself, but in the four years before he died, he painted some of the world’s most beloved works, using colour in ways that changed art forever.

In this programme, Kate discovers that film-makers have found it impossible to separate Van Gogh's work from his life – from his fraught relationship with fellow artist Paul Gauguin, to the heartbreaking struggle with his mental health that ended in tragedy. In their efforts to understand Van Gogh’s complex psyche, and where his talent and extraordinary feeling for colour came from, programme makers have explored the French countryside, where his most famous works were painted, set off on detective trails to solve the mystery of his severed ear, and delved into his personal letters, casting some of the world's most remarkable actors – from Benedict Cumberbatch to Kirk Douglas – to bring his words and work to life.

Drawing on archive broadcasts from Doctor Who to Simon Schama’s Power of Art, with contributions from experts and enthusiasts alike, from Jeremy Paxman to Andrew Graham-Dixon, Kate reveals how our interpretation of Van Gogh's work and his illness have undergone seismic changes through the decades.


MON 01:00 Great British Railway Journeys (m000d24m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 01:30 Gareth Edwards’s Great Welsh Adventure (m0009hyp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 02:00 Becoming Matisse (m000hqt7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 today]


MON 03:00 Art of France (b08f1bw0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

TUESDAY 06 AUGUST 2024

TUE 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (m000d2ch)
Series 11

Falkirk to Dundee

Michael Portillo's railway journey through 1930s Britain from Newcastle to Loch Ness reaches Falkirk in Scotland. Here he discovers the Westerglen Transmitting Station, from where they continue to broadcast analogue radio signal to the Scottish borders.

Following the route of the old Caledonian Railway Company, Michael discovers the 'Riviera of the Highlands'. With a daily direct train service to Kings Cross, Gleneagles remains a top destination and is also HQ for the British School of Falconry. Hamish the Harris hawk is ready to fly.

Berry Town, aka Blairgowrie, is Michael's next stop. At the home of the Scottish raspberry industry, which once sent fruit to London daily on board a raspberry special service from Cooper Angus station, Michael learns how to pick this most delicate of berries.

Last stop on this leg is the city of Dundee, home of the three Js: jute, jam and journalism. And waiting for Michael at publisher DC Thomson is a black and red striped comic hero beloved of 1930s children.


TUE 19:30 Gareth Edwards’s Great Welsh Adventure (m0009q7k)
Series 1

Episode 2

Gareth Edwards, once voted the greatest rugby player of all time, is not quite so coordinated when put in charge of a seventy-foot narrowboat. Stress levels are running high from the off when Gareth and his wife, childhood sweetheart Maureen, face their first lock on the Montgomery Canal. Gareth assumes the role of captain, while Maureen takes charge of the heavy lifting.
The intrepid canal explorers discover the incredible story of the narrowboat Cressy as they pass the place it was built. Use of the canals for the transporting of goods was dying out in the latter half of the 20th century. But the writer LTC Rolt took Cressy along the overgrown canal system and wrote the bestselling book Narrow Boat. It's credited with inspiring interest in canals for pleasure not industry, kick-starting the canal leisure industry and saving many old waterways from being lost forever.
Gareth and Maureen get a lift on a horse-drawn narrowboat, finally experiencing the tranquillity of near silence drifting through a pristine landscape without a roaring engine. At a section of canal that is still impassable, they learn of plans underway to restore the canal back to its former glory.
Gareth also manages to hitch a lift on a barge taking schoolchildren deep into the countryside to experience life on the canal. Finally, Gareth is asked to fire the starting gun at a triathlon in which people cycle, run and row the entire length of the canal to raise money to help fund the restoration. The journey along the Montgomery canal with two of Wales' most loved figures delivers plenty of humour and a heart-warming celebration of some of the best landscape the country has to offer.


TUE 20:00 Keeping Up Appearances (b01djr8z)
Series 1

Stately Home

Sitcom about a snobbish housewife. Hyacinth is looking forward to visiting her favourite stately home, but the trip goes wrong when her family become involved.


TUE 20:30 Butterflies (p00hm2rl)
Series 2

A Dog's Life

Russell and Adam irritate new neighbour Mr Conrad. After a visit to church, Ria nearly runs over a dog.


TUE 21:00 Ardal O’Hanlon: Tomb Raider (m0017b0b)
The story of an epic 1930s quest to find the origins of the earliest Irish men and women on the island of Ireland using archaeology. Ardal goes back to world-famous archaeological sites to see how Ireland had some of the most important finds in Europe at the time.

Further beneath the surface, Ardal discovers how both in Northern Ireland and what was then called the Irish Free State, archaeology was being used as an important tool for nation-building, as both states forged new identities in the wake of Partition. He unravels a forgotten time period, when a team of Americans from Harvard University, a Nazi archaeologist from Austria and a Welsh geography professor based in Belfast dug up ancient sites across the country.

Their pioneering work laid the foundation for modern archaeology in Ireland, north and south, and yet is largely a forgotten story. Through Ardal’s journey, the film rediscovers this strange 1930s tale but also ends up answering some of Ardal’s deepest questions about the Celts, and ultimately, what it means to be Irish.


TUE 22:00 Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? (m0020xwy)
Series 1

Iraq – For Every Insect There Is an Insecticide

After the Islamic revolution and the capture of 50 American hostages, Iran became a bitter enemy of the United States. To counterbalance Iranian influence in the region, the White House turned to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. US support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war ignored massacres, such as widespread use of chemical weapons against both the Iranians and the Kurdish ethnic minority in Iraq, as Washington maintained its close relationship with Baghdad. But with the end of the Cold War, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait turned his American ally into an enemy. Would the US now intervene to help the Kurds?


TUE 23:00 Timewatch (m001snnx)
The Mysterious Career of Lee Harvey Oswald

An investigative biography of the man at the centre of the political crime of the 20th century. The programme reassesses the psychological, political and forensic evidence of Lee Harvey Oswald's role in the assassination of President Kennedy and uncovers previously unseen footage, photographs and witnesses.


TUE 00:45 Great British Railway Journeys (m000d2ch)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


TUE 01:15 Gareth Edwards’s Great Welsh Adventure (m0009q7k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 01:45 Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? (m0020xwy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


TUE 02:45 Rebuilding Notre-Dame (m0016v1h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]

WEDNESDAY 07 AUGUST 2024

WED 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (m000d2fm)
Series 11

Dundee to Aberdeen

Michael Portillo continues his railway journey from Newcastle to Loch Ness, steered by his 1930s Bradshaw's Guide.

Stopping at Dundee, Michael heads for Glamis Castle, where Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother, grew up. Michael hears about her happy childhood and how she later found sanctuary there, when King Edward VIII abdicated and she and Prince Albert unexpectedly became king and queen of the United Kingdom.

Striking north along the east coast of Scotland, Michael's next stop is Montrose, from where he makes an excursion into the Eastern Highlands. Here he discovers a network of bothies: remote shelters used by hikers and mountaineers to escape the harsh weather in the hills, and indulges in a wee dram.

Continuing on the East Coast Line, Michael arrives in the Granite City of Aberdeen, where research at one of Britain's first institutes of nutrition led to a nationwide programme of free school milk.

On Aberdeen beach, once popular with Glaswegian holidaymakers, Michael investigates the city's art deco Beach Ballroom and learns to foxtrot.


WED 19:30 Gareth Edwards’s Great Welsh Adventure (m0009xs7)
Series 1

Episode 3

Rugby legend Gareth Edwards and wife Maureen’s canal adventure continues in style as they are entrusted with a classy craft on which to explore the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal. Determined to show that he has mastered the art of narrow-boating, Gareth takes charge of the Bentley of barges. But no amount of determination prevents a few bumps and scrapes along the way. As a reward for their endeavours, the intrepid duo discover a way to make gin with ingredients found in the hedgerows.
Gareth is a lifelong fisherman and loves nothing more than a few hours on a riverbank. When the canal passes the Glanusk Estate, Gareth seizes the chance to meet up with Tiggy Pettifer. Once nanny to the royal princes, Tiggy now runs the estate. Gareth admits that if he had to make a choice between scoring a try for Wales or catching the perfect salmon, it would be catching the fish every time. As Gareth and Maureen pull into Brecon, where the canal ends, they couldn’t have a more appropriate welcoming party. A jazz band – a style of music with which the town is synonymous thanks to its annual festival - is waiting to greet them.


WED 20:00 Pole to Pole (p02j8sp7)
Shifting Sands

Civil war and poor conditions bring Michael to a near halt as he crosses Sudan, and it takes him over 24 hours to travel just 60 miles as he draws near the Ethiopian border.


WED 20:50 Wild (b008tfyt)
2007-08 Shorts

Glacier Mountain Goats

Wildlife documentary. It's spring for the mountain goats of Glacier National Park in Canada's Rocky Mountains. The young goats will have to learn how to survive in this beautiful but treacherous wilderness.


WED 21:00 Catching Britain's Killers: The Crimes That Changed Us (m0009mg4)
Series 1

Interrogation

Beginning in 1972, this episode tells the story of a miscarriage of justice that would lead to major changes in police powers.

In 1972, the body of Maxwell Confait was found in a house in Catford, south London. After a short investigation, three local boys confessed to arson and murder. At the Old Bailey, all three were convicted, despite retracting their statements and protesting their innocence.

Following the unfolding story, the programme explores how, after taking up their case, their local MP made sure it received maximum publicity, which finally led to an appeal where all three of the convictions were quashed. The fact that three teenage boys could have confessed to something they hadn’t done would shine a light on dangerous police practices and lead to a royal commission and an overhaul of the law.

Weaving together archive and interviews with police officers, lawyers, politicians and relatives of the accused boys and of the late MP Christopher Price, this episode tells the story of the new rights for suspects that were brought in following the boys’ wrongful convictions. One miscarriage of justice would lead to a change in the law which brought in the right to a lawyer, a responsible adult and the tape recording of all police interviews.

As the programme moves forward, the consequences of the case go further still, as tape recording reveals police practices have not yet universally caught up with the changes in the law. Further reforms have led to the search for evidence, rather than pressing for confessions, as the goal for UK police investigations. As the episode shows, one single murder investigation in 1972 led to major reforms in British policing, transforming the rights of us all.


WED 22:00 Jonathan Creek (p04cpxhy)
Series 1

The Wrestler's Tomb

Hedley Shale is found murdered with two bullets in his chest in the upstairs bedroom at his South London home. Shale's wife is the obvious suspect, but she has a cast iron alibi.


WED 23:30 Ruby with Alan Davies (m0021sv9)
Celebrity chat with Ruby Wax from 2002. Ruby's guests are Alan Davies, Joanna Lumley and Jean-Christophe Novelli.


WED 00:15 Great British Railway Journeys (m000d2fm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


WED 00:45 Gareth Edwards’s Great Welsh Adventure (m0009xs7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


WED 01:15 Pole to Pole (p02j8sp7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 02:05 Catching Britain's Killers: The Crimes That Changed Us (m0009mg4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

THURSDAY 08 AUGUST 2024

THU 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (m000d2gj)
Series 11

Elgin to Loch Ness

Michael Portillo is in the Scottish Highlands on the last leg of his rail journey through 1930s Britain. He begins in Elgin's port, the coastal town of Lossiemouth, where James Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour Party's first prime minister was born. Michael meets his granddaughter to visit the family home and discovers what shaped his politics.

On the outskirts of Lossiemouth, Michael finds a remote boarding school established in the 1930s and famous today both for its unusual ideas and its royal former pupils. He hears how the school's founder fled Nazi Germany and joins its fully-working fire service, manned entirely by pupils, for training.

Michael's last stop is the city of Inverness, where first he uncovers the work of female photographer MEM Donaldson. She documented a Highland way of life that was rapidly disappearing at the time of his guide.

Michael's journey ends at one of the most notorious bodies of water in the world, Loch Ness. He joins the Deep Scan research team as they scour the deep for signs of the elusive monster.


THU 19:30 Gareth Edwards’s Great Welsh Adventure (m000b4kx)
Series 1

Episode 4

Rugby legend Gareth Edwards and his wife, and childhood sweetheart, Maureen reach the final leg of their round-Wales adventure by canal. And the conclusion of their beautiful but bumpy journey through the most spectacular scenery Wales has to offer has a personal connection for them both. This pair of narrowboat novices grew up at opposite ends of the same street in the village of Gwaun-cae-Gurwen, a few miles from Neath. As children, they would play in the areas by the derelict canals but knew very little of them and their history. Today, though the canals are virtually impassable, they have been cleaned up. Gareth and Maureen discover no fewer than three canals on their doorstep: the Swansea Canal and the Neath and Tennant Canals. The canals reveal a story of industry that once dominated the area, canals being constructed to get coal and iron to the docks. But now there is a plan afoot to give them a new lease of life. Teams of dedicated volunteers are working on the old canals, hoping to restore and reopen them. Gareth and Maureen can’t help but be impressed when they take to the water by motorboat and even canoe to get a sense of what the canals will be like when they reopen.


THU 20:00 Eyewitness to History: Norma Percy on Watergate (m0021sv5)
Respected documentary-maker Norma Percy has a well-deserved reputation for revealing the truth behind the biggest news events of modern times, specialising in securing in-depth interviews with key players who she has persuaded to open up on the reality of what happened. As a critic once wrote: '…every significant international story seems to have its Percy film.'

Here, ahead of a rescreening of her acclaimed 1994 series Watergate, Norma looks back on her approach and the challenges she faced when piecing together in forensic detail the tale of the botched break-in that sent shock waves through America and the world, toppled a president, and fatally undermined society’s faith in the integrity of our political leaders.

Norma explains how she managed to gain exclusive access to the figures who went from obscurity to notoriety thanks to their involvement in the Watergate scandal, and shares her feelings on why the series may still resonate with viewers today.


THU 20:10 Watergate (m000v4bn)
Series 1

Break-In

The full story of the Watergate scandal. In 1974, Richard Nixon, brought down by the Watergate scandal, became the only US president ever to resign. This programme looks at the break-in at the Democrats' headquarters in the Watergate Hotel on the night of 17 June 1972.


THU 21:00 All the President's Men (m000rgnx)
In the early 1970s, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the Watergate scandal - a conspiracy to cover up abuses of power leading all the way to the Oval Office and eventually to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.


THU 23:15 Amol Rajan Interviews (m001m0rb)
Watergate to Trump

Amol Rajan interviews Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two journalists at the heart of the Watergate scandal, about the fall of Nixon, the presidency of Trump, the state of America and the world today.

In this wide-ranging and in-depth interview, Rajan questions the pair on some of the most important issues of modern times and explores the parallels between recent events and the scandal that eventually led to the resignation of the 37th US president.


THU 00:00 Paris (b007rtt7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Monday]


THU 01:00 Great British Railway Journeys (m000d2gj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


THU 01:30 Gareth Edwards’s Great Welsh Adventure (m000b4kx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 02:00 Watergate (m000v4bn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:10 today]


THU 02:50 Ardal O’Hanlon: Tomb Raider (m0017b0b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]

FRIDAY 09 AUGUST 2024

FRI 19:00 Top of the Pops (m0021s8x)
Ian Wright presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 16 May 1996 and featuring JX, Horace Brown, Liverpool FC, Black Grape, Gina G, 1300 Drums, Smashing Pumpkins, Bryan Adams, George Michael and Alanis Morissette.


FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (m0021s8z)
Jack Dee and Jeremy Hardy present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 30 May 1996 and featuring Backstreet Boys, M-Beat ft Jamiroquai, Metallica, Peter Andre ft Bubbler Ranx, Manic Street Preachers, Celine Dion, Lighthouse Family, Bryan Adams, Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds and Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen.


FRI 20:00 BBC Proms (m0021s91)
2024

A Kanneh-Mason Playlist at the Proms

Superstar siblings Sheku and Braimah, and captivating Brazilian guitarist Plínio Fernandes, perform an eclectic and surprising playlist from Brahms to Bob Marley.

The concert is made up of a range of music inspired by Sheku and Braimah’s inspirations and Plínio's Brazilian roots. With songs born from folk, reggae and soul, expect unique arrangements of much-loved hits such as I Say a Little Prayer, Redemption Song, The Girl from Ipanema, and Brahms’s Hungarian Dances.

The dynamic Fantasia Orchestra makes its Proms debut under its founder, Tom Fetherstonhaugh. Presented by Georgia Mann.


FRI 21:20 Top of the Pops (m00042ky)
Gary Davies presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast 6 August 1987 and featuring New Order, Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram, Sinitta, Samantha Fox, Wet Wet Wet, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Spagna, Los Lobos and Stock Aitken Waterman.


FRI 21:50 Sight and Sound in Concert (m0021s93)
Joe Jackson

Steve Blacknell introduces a concert by Joe Jackson from the Regal Theatre, Hitchin.


FRI 22:30 Rock Goes to College (m0021s95)
Joe Jackson

Pete Drummond introduces Joe Jackson in concert at Hatfield Polytechnic.


FRI 23:15 TOTP2 (p00fywyj)
Acts include Boney M, Ringo Starr, Joe Jackson, Roy Orbison, Imagination and White Stripes. Mica Paris and Will Downing perform Where Is the Love, while Craig David and Sting join forces for Rise and Fall.


FRI 23:40 Joe Jackson - That Was Then... This Is Now (m0021s98)
Revealing interview from 1989 in which singer-songwriter Joe Jackson talks about the rock and pop world and his personal aims and goals. Featuring archive performance footage.


FRI 00:10 Top of the Pops (b03mpphw)
The Story of 1979

1979 was a unique year for Top of the Pops, which saw the show record its highest audience of 19 million viewers and in which physical format singles sales hit an all-time high of 79 million. 1979 is maybe the most diverse year ever for acts on Top of the Pops with disco at its peak, new wave, 2 Tone, reggae, rock, folk and electro records all making the top five.

Original interviews with Gary Numan, Nile Rodgers, Woody from Madness, Jah Wobble, Chas and Dave, Janet Kay, Linda Nolan, Jim Dooley, Secret Affair, the Ruts, Legs and Co and many others tell the story of an exceptional year.

In the year that the 'winter of discontent' saw continuing strikes black out ITV and TOTP reduced during a technicians strike to a narrator introducing videos, the show also found itself the site of conflict backstage. TOTP's old guard of 70s MOR acts had their feathers continually ruffled by new wave bands, as the Skids spat at the Nolan Sisters backstage and Generation X urinated off the roof onto the Dooleys.

Elsewhere in the corridors of TV Centre, in preparation for playing their single Death Disco, Public Image Ltd demanded their teeth were blacked out in make-up to appear ugly, while Gary Numan remembers the overbearing union presence which prevented TOTP artists moving their own microphones without a union technician and the Musicians Union trying to ban him from the show for his use of synthesizers.

The most popular musical styles of 1979 were 2 Tone, reggae and disco. The latter saw Nile Rodgers, the man of the year, score four hits with Chic as well as writing and producing a further four hits with Sister Sledge, Sheila B Devotion and Sugarhill Gang, who appeared with what would prove to be the first ever rap hit.

Jamaican and UK reggae artists scored continual hits through the year and then watched as the Police notched up three hits with white reggae and the label 2 Tone revived the 60s reggae style known as ska. In November, in what is remembered as the 2 Tone edition, all three of the label's new acts - Madness, Specials and Selecter - appeared on one historic night and took the show by storm, with Madness capping off their performance of One Step Beyond by leading a 'nutty train' conga through the studio.


FRI 01:05 Top of the Pops (m0021s8x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


FRI 01:35 Top of the Pops (m0021s8z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


FRI 02:05 Top of the Pops (m00042ky)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:20 today]


FRI 02:35 Sight and Sound in Concert (m0021s93)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:50 today]


FRI 03:15 Rock Goes to College (m0021s95)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 today]