SATURDAY 17 AUGUST 2024

SAT 19:00 Great British Railway Journeys (m000dblt)
Series 11

Taunton to Salisbury Plain

Michael Portillo crosses the county line from Devon into Somerset on his rail exploration of the West Country steered by his 1930s Bradshaw's guide.

He sees first-hand how willow farmers sought to overcome the challenge from the production of synthetic plastics during the 1930s. He hears how tourism for all budgets spread across the region, especially amongst the young, for whom youth hostels sprang up, with good wishes from none other than the prime minister of the day, Stanley Baldwin.

In the city of Bath, Michael visits the former home of a refugee emperor, whose country was invaded by the Italian dictator Mussolini, and in whose name a religious movement began, which now flourishes worldwide.

Travelling east into Wiltshire, Michael reaches the largest training area of the British Army, Salisbury Plain, where the Royal Tank Regiment, established in 1939, is on manoeuvres with its awesome Streetfighter tank.


SAT 19:30 Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village (b0bsrqfw)
Series 1

North East

Archaeologist Ben Robinson unlocks the ancient roots of the Northumberland village of Warkworth. With the help of locals, he discovers clues that point back almost 1,000 years to the Norman conquest when the invaders laid the foundations of a planned community, still visible to this day.


SAT 20:00 Voyages of Discovery (b0074t2w)
Circumnavigation

Explorer Paul Rose reveals the real story behind the first ever circumnavigation of the world.

Ferdinand Magellan set out 500 years ago to find the westward route to the riches of the Spice Islands. But, contrary to popular perception, he never reached them. Rose explains the dramatic sequence of events that led his scurvy-riddled crew to continue around the world without him. The incredible expedition was laced with bloody mutiny and murder, but its achievement was to fundamentally change the lives of the generations that followed, influencing life even today.


SAT 21:00 Parkinson at 50 (m000z8jy)
On 16 June 1971, Michael Parkinson walked down those famous stairs for the first time and introduced the first ever Parkinson show. The guests were celebrity snapper Ray Bellasario and comedy actor Terry-Thomas. Seen as a temporary ten-week filler programme, it went on to record over 650 episodes featuring interviews with over 2,000 guests and was voted by the BFI one of the top ten UK television programmes of all time.

This programme tells the full story of the humble beginnings of the show and how it rose to become an award-winning Saturday night staple, a source of water-cooler moments before that phrase had even been thought of. It tells the story of how Michael left Fleet Street and stumbled into television at Granada, where he made his first attempt at celebrity interviewing in an encounter with Mick Jagger. Poached by the BBC, he then found himself hosting the show that would make his name, and he recounts how the success of the show was secured by convincing Orson Welles to appear, as well as how the first series was wiped, losing interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono amongst others.

It was a time when the likes of Jimmy Cagney, Fred Astaire, Lauren Bacall and Ingrid Bergman could be interviewed in depth for the first time, though the show developed into something more than just a celebrity gabfest. Michael reveals some tricks of the interview trade and remembers some of his favourite moments, including his encounters with Muhammad Ali and Billy Connolly, as well as some less successful meetings with Meg Ryan and Helen Mirren. He also explains his decision to leave the interview game in 2008.


SAT 22:00 Parkinson (p00nyy41)
The Dr Jacob Bronowski Interview

First transmitted in 1974. Michael Parkinson's guest is Dr Jacob Bronowski, the presenter and writer of the 1973 documentary series The Ascent of Man. Dr Bronowski shares his first impressions on arriving in England in the 1920s, his memories of filming at Auschwitz, his thoughts on science and his broader philosophy of life in a truly compelling interview.


SAT 23:05 Parkinson (m00226pg)
Billy Connolly, Anna Raeburn, Rod Hull & Emu and Frank Evans

Michael Parkinson with guests Billy Connolly, Anna Raeburn, Rod Hull & Emu and Frank Evans. First transmitted in 1976.


SAT 00:10 Parkinson (m00226pj)
Victoria and David Beckham, George Best and Elton John

Michael Parkinson is joined by David and Victoria Beckham, soccer legend George Best and pop icon Elton John.


SAT 01:15 Keeping Up Appearances (b01djsdp)
Series 1

The Charity Shop

Hyacinth is at her wits' end, what with the charity shop, Councillor Nugent and Rose's love life. Can she cope and keep the flag flying, as well as her sanity?


SAT 01:45 Butterflies (p00f0vnv)
Series 2

Keeping Fit

Ria's visit to a keep fit class leads to a chance meeting with Leonard, who seems unwell and unhappy. Should Ria help him out?


SAT 02:15 Voyages of Discovery (b0074t2w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SAT 03:15 Great British Railway Journeys (m000dblt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]

SUNDAY 18 AUGUST 2024

SUN 19:00 Eisteddfod (m00226pv)
Eisteddfod 2024 with Huw Stephens

Part 3

It’s one of the biggest festivals in Europe, a celebration of Welsh culture and a natural showcase for music, dance, visual arts, literature, original performances and so much more.

Huw Stephens heads to Ynysangharad Park in Pontypridd to bring all the best performances from the different stages at this diverse festival - from soloists to choirs, folk bands, brass bands, rap, reggae and rock bands, classy pop performances and classical music.

Eisteddfod 2024 with Huw Stephens promises some world-class performances at this truly unique event.


SUN 20:00 BBC Proms (m00226px)
2024

Britten’s War Requiem

Sir Antonio Pappano’s first Prom as chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra brings Britten’s War Requiem, an emblem of hope after mass destruction, to the Royal Albert Hall. They are joined by soloists Natalya Romaniw, Allan Clayton and Will Liverman with the London Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Chorus and Tiffin’ Boy’s Choir, who perform the haunting child choral section. Petroc Trelawny presents this pensive, relevant and highly anticipated concert.


SUN 21:30 Britten’s War Requiem: Staging a Masterpiece (m0002k5k)
Filmed over 12 months, with unprecedented access, this landmark film follows the English National Opera as they pursue the challenge of staging Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. One of the greatest British choral works of the 20th century, War Requiem is seen by many as a true masterpiece.

The ENO are the first company to transform the work into a dramatised performance. Artistic director Daniel Kramer engaged a team drawn from across the world including the Turner Prize-winning artist Wolfgang Tillmans to adapt the piece that was originally written for the reconsecration of Coventry Cathedral. The original cathedral was destroyed during World War II, and Britten wanted to create a powerful statement against the horrors of war, a piece that inspired reconciliation. The result was an emotionally charged piece that requires three soloists, a large choir, a children’s choir, a large orchestra, two organs as well as a chamber orchestra. Juxtaposing the traditional Latin Requiem Mass with the World War I poet Wilfred Owen’s powerful anti-war poetry, the overall effect is a powerful emotional journey.


SUN 22:30 Benjamin Britten on Camera (b03j42wt)
Documentary exploring the dynamic relationship that developed between British composer Benjamin Britten and the BBC as they worked together to broadcast modern classical music further and wider. Through this collaboration, Britten's music reached television audiences, from elaborately staged studio operas, intimate duets featuring his partner Peter Pears, to the massive Proms performance of his War Requiem. The programme features interviews with Britten's collaborators and singers as well as those working behind the scenes including Michael Crawford, David Attenborough, Humphrey Burton and soprano April Cantelo. James Naughtie narrates.


SUN 23:30 Stewart Copeland's Adventures in Music (m000db8k)
Series 1

Episode 1

Stewart Copeland explores the power music has to bring people together and to bond them in ways that are fundamental to our evolution and existence.

His travels take him from the southern German cave where a 40,000-year-old bone flute was discovered to the modern-day mass singalong of New York’s Choir! Choir! Choir! Along the way he gets to play with a Memphis marching band, join a song circle led by Bobby McFerrin, deconstruct the sexiness of 'Relax' with its producer Trevor Horn, discuss the art of songwriting with his old colleague Sting and learn how to create dance floor unity with international star DJ Honey Dijon.


SUN 00:30 Romancing the Stone: The Golden Ages of British Sculpture (b00ydp2y)
Masons of God

Alastair Sooke reveals the astonishing range of our medieval sculpture, from the imposing masterpieces of our Gothic cathedrals to the playful misericords underneath church stalls.

He shows how the sculpture of the era casts a new light on medieval Britain, a far more sophisticated, fun-loving and maverick place than we in the modern world commonly believe. But despite the technical and emotional power of these works, the notion of a 'sculptor' did not even exist; most carving of the time was done by teams of itinerant masons and artisans working for the Church. The names of some, like William Berkeley, are known but most are lost to history.

This first golden age came to an end with Henry VIII's Reformation of the Church, unleashing a wave of destruction from which it would take centuries to recover.


SUN 01:30 Britten’s War Requiem: Staging a Masterpiece (m0002k5k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:30 today]


SUN 02:30 Benjamin Britten on Camera (b03j42wt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 today]

MONDAY 19 AUGUST 2024

MON 19:00 Fred Dibnah's Age of Steam (b0078kym)
The Early Pioneers

Fred Dibnah traces the development of steam power from the earliest experiments in the ancient world to the modern nuclear power station. Fred visits Cornwall to look at the early history of the steam engine, first developed to pump water from tin mines.


MON 19:30 Gareth Edwards’s Great Welsh Adventure (p09z3klx)
Series 2

Episode 4

Gareth and Maureen Edwards head to St Davids, a place which holds half a lifetime of special memories for them. After making 53 appearances for Wales, Gareth retired from rugby in 1978. After years in the public eye, he and Maureen booked a holiday in St Davids for them and their young boys. The holiday was such a hit, they returned every summer for more than 40 years.

Gareth and Maureen begin with a visit to a shire horse farm. A century ago there were more than a million shire horses in the UK, but today there are under 3,000 and the farm is working to safeguard the species. Gareth and Maureen meet the horses before finding out who can master driving a shire horse-drawn carriage.

Later, watching the St Davids rugby team train on the beach brings back memories for Gareth who, as a young player, did the same with the Welsh team at Aberavon beach. The couple are delighted to catch up with old friend, Dai Chant, the medal-winning former coxswain of the St Davids’ lifeboat. The old lifeboat station he worked from has been abandoned in favour of a state-of-the-art station next door. They see the new lifeboat launch as the crew go out on exercise.

Catching a boat to Ramsey Island, Gareth and Maureen visit the remote bird sanctuary and discover the colony of razorbills – or ‘razorblades’ as Maureen call them - on the precipitous wild cliffs on the far side of the island.


MON 20:00 The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution (b012xqyp)
The Great Outdoors

Waldemar Januszczak continues his investigation of the Impressionists by taking us outdoors to their most famous locations. Although Impressionist pictures often look sunny and relaxed, achieving this peaceful air was hard work. Trudging through fog, wind and rain, across treacherous coastal rocks and knee-deep snow, Waldemar shows how the famous spontaneity of the Impressionists is thoroughly misleading.

This episode visits the French riverside locations that Monet loved to paint, and where Renoir captured the bonhomie of modern life. Waldemar also introduces a number of technical and practical developments of the age which completely revolutionised Impressionist painting - the invention of portable easels; the use of hog's hair in paint brushes; as well as the introduction of the railway through France. And a scientific demonstration in a Swedish snowdrift explains just how right the Impressionists were to paint brightly coloured shadows in their winter scenes, despite being accused of 'hallucinating' at the time.

Finally, Januszczak explains Cezanne's part in the Impressionist story from his dark and challenging early work to his first rural landscapes in France, and then his departure from Paris and separation from the Impressionist gang.


MON 21:00 Call My Bluff (m00226nk)
Robert Robinson presides over a duel of words and wit between Patrick Campbell, Pauline Collins, Antony Hopkins and Frank Muir, the Marchioness of Tavistock, Edward Fox.


MON 21:30 Going for a Song (m00226nm)
Max Robertson and resident connoisseur Arthur Negus welcome guest connoisseur Graham Wells and customers Arianna Stassinopoulos and Simon Williams to explore the world of antiques.


MON 22:00 Mary Beard’s Shock of the Nude (m000f1t2)
Series 1

Episode 1

In the first programme her provocative two-part essay, classicist and broadcaster Mary Beard takes on the nude. As she says ‘There are an awful lot of naked bodies in western art, and they are often causing trouble even now.’

From the ancient Greeks to the taboo-busting painters and sculptors of today, Mary gives a deeply personal take on naked bodies in art. Just why are artists so interested in nudity? What can art reveal about our own attitudes to the body? For Mary, the nude stands on some of the deepest fault lines running through society, speaking to issues of men, women, gender and sex gender, sex and moral transgression.

Art critics over the centuries have made lofty claims about the nude and the ennobling effects of art – playing down the erotic, even sometimes pornographic, nature of some great works of art. Mary argues we mustn’t forget the edgy and dangerous nature of the nude – which is why it remains such a magnetic subject for artists and viewers alike – exploring in her words ‘ how for so long men got away with it'.

Mary starts by exploring the very first full-size nude sculpture in western art: an Aphrodite by Praxiteles, depicting the goddess as if she has been accidentally interrupted as she bathed. Mary argues it’s a clever 'alibi' to avoid accusations of lewdness from viewers, which set the tone for nude female artworks, from the ancient world to the Renaissance and beyond.

At Florence’s Uffizi gallery, the Venus de Medici became a 'must-see' artwork during the 18th-century Grand Tour. Young men flocked to see this statue of a beautiful woman - but was this because it was 'art' or did it also appeal to baser instincts? Mary also looks at one of the very first reclining nudes in Western Art, Titian’s Venus of Urbino. One of the most revered artworks ever – it’s no coincidence it’s an illustration of a male sexual fantasy. Mary asks how a woman like her should respond to the artwork.

Mary then considers the challenge of depicting the female nude for a woman artist, looking at one of the greatest 17th-century painters, Artemisia Gentileschi. In the Biblical story of Susanna and the Elders, the virtuous Susanna is blackmailed by two lecherous old men who surprise her as she bathes, threatening to accuse her of adultery if she doesn’t have sex with them. Mary reveals it’s a fascinating work that takes on a wholly deeper resonance when you know Gentileschi had herself been raped. She also looks at Gentileschi’s choice of subject as an artist having to earn her living.

In a life-drawing class, Mary joins a hen party as they draw a naked male. It’s a lot of fun - but for centuries would have been impossible, as women were forbidden to study a naked man in this way. Of course, the most famous nude male sculpture in Western Art is Michelangelo’s David. Mary reveals how, for centuries, his private parts were covered with a fig leaf. It was one way prudish censors have dealt with the 'shock of the nude', but these days that’s changing. Mary finds out at Cork’s Crawford Art Gallery as she rolls up her sleeve to remove a plaster fig leaf, and discovers what lies beneath...

The nude in art can often have a deep sexual allure - even when the subject is highly religious. The Christian martyr Sebastian was tortured with arrows - but depictions of this horrific scene has seen the figure transformed into an erotic gay icon. Mary looks at how the nude has always brushed up against eroticism and asks what is the line between the alluring and the pornographic? This is especially true of one painting Mary sees at Paris’ Musée D’Orsay. Gustave Courbet’s The Origin of the World is still shocking, a stark image of a woman's genitalia and pubic hair, devoid of any identifying features.

Our cultural attachment to the nude is deep-rooted. At Manchester Art Gallery Mary meets artist Sonia Boyce who, in an art intervention, removed (temporarily) J. Waterhouse’s much-loved painting Hylas and the Nymphs. It caused a national furore amidst accusations of censorship, extreme political correctness, even links to book-burning. Why did feelings run so high? The Western nude Mary argues is a peculiar creation – and this is exposed even further if you take a global perspective. Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, an expert in African art, shows Mary the centrepiece of a vast Yoruba headdress: a naked woman but one that meant something very different to the culture she came from, and it was all about community not sex.

Finally, Mary talks to artist Jemima Stehli – about her photographic work Strip, in which a woman takes her clothes off in front of a succession of men, challenges viewers to think again about the relationship between the naked body and the artist. It is a deeply modern take on an age-old subject – one that continues to make us ask tricky questions about ourselves and that questions how the naked images of others makes us feel.


MON 23:00 Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau (b01f1959)
British Cities

Britain's art nouveau heritage is excavated as cultural correspondent Stephen Smith unearths the bright, controversial but brief career of Aubrey Beardsley.

On a mission to uncover lesser-known stars of Britain's version of this continental fin-de-siecle style, he explores the stunning work of Mary Watts and the massive influence of department store entrepreneur Arthur Liberty.

In Scotland, he celebrates the innovative art nouveau of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, but looks harder at the extraordinary and influential work of Mackintosh's wife, Margaret MacDonald.


MON 00:00 Romancing the Stone: The Golden Ages of British Sculpture (b00yml9v)
Mavericks of Empire

By the middle of the 18th century, Britain was in possession of a vast empire. It required a new way of seeing ourselves and so we turned to the statues of ancient Greece and Rome to project the secular power and glory of the British Empire.

The message was clear: Britain was the new Rome, our generals and politicians on a par with the heroes of the ancient world. The flood of funds, both public and private, into sculptural projects unleashed a new golden age, yet it was also a remarkably unorthodox one. The greatest sculptors of the 18th and 19th centuries were those mavericks who bucked prevailing trends - geniuses like John Flaxman, Francis Chantrey and Alfred Gilbert.

Alastair Sooke tells the story of these mavericks and reveals the extraordinary technical breakthroughs behind their key works: carving in marble with a pointer machine and the primal power of the lost-wax technique.


MON 01:00 Fred Dibnah's Age of Steam (b0078kym)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 01:30 Gareth Edwards’s Great Welsh Adventure (p09z3klx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 02:00 Mary Beard’s Shock of the Nude (m000f1t2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


MON 03:00 The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution (b012xqyp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

TUESDAY 20 AUGUST 2024

TUE 19:00 Fred Dibnah's Age of Steam (b03lzh78)
The Age of the Steam Locomotive

Fred Dibnah traces the development of steam power, from early colliery railways to the end of steam travel in Britain in the 1960s.


TUE 19:30 Gareth Edwards’s Great Welsh Adventure (p09z3lpb)
Series 2

Episode 5

For the last of their new adventures, Maureen has arranged a trip to the spectacular Brecon Beacons. But it’s not the usual walks amid epic mountain scenery on the agenda. In a first for both, the childhood sweethearts enlist in tank school. After donning cam cream and military gear, the couple get a lesson in controlling a full-sized tank. Maureen’s keen to see if the new vehicle can pick up speed.

Their accommodation is another new experience – a shepherd’s hut complete with lush rolling hills for a view and sheep for neighbours. Gareth is a keen clay pigeon shooter and wants Maureen to try her hand at the sport. After getting some tips from farmer and Welsh champion clay shooter Rhys Lewis, the competitive pair are both determined not to be the one to miss.

Meanwhile, Gareth and Maureen’s inability to take one in-focus photograph of their adventures continues. Photographer Rhian Mai meets them at a spectacular natural cave to help hone their skills. The weekend ends where the original adventure began – on one of Wales’s most beautiful canals. Hopes start high as, with a little help, they manage to stay on course and not crash. But it isn’t long before the barge runs aground and the battle resumes to determine who was responsible.


TUE 20:00 Keeping Up Appearances (b01djtdp)
Series 1

Daisy's Toyboy

Sitcom about a snobbish housewife. Hyacinth's social standing at a church function is jeopardised when Daisy tries to encourage Onslow to become more ardent.


TUE 20:30 Butterflies (p00hm2tv)
Series 2

An Attractive Visitor

Susanna, a woman the Parkinsons met on holiday, comes to stay and causes Ria more anxiety.


TUE 21:00 The Ruth Ellis Files: A Very British Crime Story (b09w3m05)
Series 1

Episode 2

In April 1955 Ruth Ellis shot her lover David Blakely dead. It's a case that shocked the nation and it still fascinates today. It has its place in ushering in the defence of diminished responsibility and the eventual abolishment of capital punishment. We all think we know the story, but why, when it was seemingly such an open and shut case, does it still divide opinion on whether Ruth Ellis got the justice she deserved?

Film-maker Gillian Pachter wants to find out. The result is a fresh investigation with fascinating true-crime twists and turns that also shines a unique light on attitudes to class, gender and sex in 1950s London.

In episode two Gillian turns her attention to Ruth's trial which took just a day and a half. She starts with a tape-recorded conversation from the 1980s between Ruth's son Andre and the barrister who led the prosecution. Andre expresses doubts about his mother's trial, calling into question her state of mind and whether she was a cold-blooded killer.

Gillian is interested to know whether the defence shared these concerns and she turns her attention to Ruth's solicitor. There are immediate and compelling questions about how he was hired, by whom and why. Ultimately it seems he was determined that the jury should look beyond the tabloid stereotype of Ruth to understand her troubled background - that way, they'd be inclined to recommend mercy and save Ruth from execution. But Ruth and her barrister had other ideas - while she refused to play ball he pursued a defence strategy so risky that the judge was forced to put his foot down.

There's the ongoing question of Ruth's alleged accomplice and how much Ruth's defence team knew of his involvement and continuing revelations from the forgotten witness, Ruth's son Andre. Gillian draws on expert opinion from top legal minds who know the case intimately, and they paint a portrait of a woman trapped not only by the constraints of 1950s society but by the narrow parameters of English law.


TUE 22:00 Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? (m0020xx1)
Series 1

Rwanda – That Was a Local Thing

Why did the entire world stand by in 1994 as nearly one million people were murdered over one hundred days of incomprehensible terror in Rwanda? American diplomats describe events on the ground and in Washington as this tragedy unfolded. What did the White House know, when did they know it and why didn’t they act? The horrendous results of ignoring the genocide in Rwanda haunts the Washington decision-makers to this day. President Clinton refers to it as 'the greatest failure of my life'.


TUE 23:00 Watergate (p00frf9w)
Series 1

Massacre

The so-called Saturday Night Massacre, the chain of events that unfolded on 20 October 1973, when President Nixon demanded that special prosecutor Archibald Cox be fired.


TUE 23:50 Watergate (p00frfb5)
Series 1

Impeachment

President Nixon clings on to the White House as the case against him mounts. The automatic recording system he ordered to be installed in the Oval Office, however, contains damning evidence.


TUE 00:40 Inside America's Treasure House: The Met (m000zwpm)
Series 1

Episode 2

The Met's 150th anniversary year has been derailed by Covid-19. Then in May 2020, the murder of George Floyd, only the latest in a litany of killings of African Americans by white police officers, forces America to confront, once again, inequalities in social justice.

At the museum, the executive are examining their historical record on inclusion, exclusion and diversity, in art and staffing, and find it wanting. In an open letter, questions have been raised and accusations levelled about systemic racism at all New York arts institutions. CEO Dan Weiss has been wrong-footed by anger from within the museum about a postcolonial state of mind expressed in some of the Met's most treasured objects.

In the American Wing, Weiss ponders a 21st-century question: some of the art reflects 19th-century tastes and attitudes to other cultures, in particular the First Nations, who were moved off their homelands even as the museum was being built. It's not just indigenous peoples; most citizens of New York are not Caucasian - where are their stories? How do black and brown visitors feel about their representation in an art house that says it wants to be all things to all people?

The programme moves on with a chronicle of a visit to the Met by Connecticut resident and mum of two Tracy-Ann Samuel. The African American community worker grew up in the city. For her and husband Cleon the Met was more than a museum; it was a portal to other cultures, ideas and, of course, beauty. She wants her girls, Kristen, ten, and Kelsie, four, to see positive depictions of people who look like them, and to ask questions about art that makes statements and assumptions about gender, power and race.

The theme of art and politics as indivisible begins. The Samuel family analyses the messaging in one of the Met's keystone treasures, Emanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware. It's a celebrated depiction of heroism, idealising a pivotal moment in the struggle to create the republic, which forms part of the national narrative displayed in the American Wing. Kristen Samuel is a dispassionate viewer, but finds little to interest her.

In contrast, Wooden Boat People, two works by Cree artist Kent Monkman, speak directly to the family. Provocatively positioned in the Great Hall, the paintings were commissioned by the Met, who invited Monkman to look for inspiration in the collections. Leutze's Washington portrait was his choice. The works feature Monkman's gender-fluid alter ego, Miss Chief Testickle.

We see the Canadian artist in his rural studio near Toronto to hear of his relationship with the Met, colonial attitudes and the activities of the slave-owning, native-baiting Washington.

At the museum, there's more political comment, long hidden but now revealed by x-ray analysis of Jacques-Louis David's portrait of scientists Mr and Mrs Lavoisier. Painted just before the French Revolution, it had depicted the bourgeois couple as clever but chic, but was hurriedly overpainted to save them from the guillotine.

But should stories of the old, white and dead take precedence in the museum? And should it concern itself with anything more than the beauty of the exhibits? These issues are discussed by Head of Modern and Contemporary Art Sheena Wagstaff, who proactively promotes the work of African American and other unrepresented artists. She's just added Rashid Johnson's Five Broken Men to the collection.

The issue, says Mary Rockefeller, whose family have long been Met donors, is respect. Her father Nelson was so obsessed with what was once called ‘Primitive Art’ that he gave the Met his personal collection and then built a vast wing to house it. Named for Mary's twin David, who disappeared in Papua New Guinea, the collection of arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas is the setting for the existential question facing all museums: shouldn't the exhibits be given back?

Puerto Rican artist Miguel Luciano has taken the discussion a step forward by 3D modelling a 1,000-year-old wooden devotional statue from the Rockefeller collection. He's not for taking it back, but for re-contextualising an object designed to be handled. We are with him as he unveils it to veteran social photographer Hiram Maristany. Luciano is working on a Met programme that aims to use artefacts to build links with communities who might feel that the museum, and its collections, have little to say to them.

At the end of their visit, the Samuel family find that the season's stand-out exhibition, The American Struggle, speaks volumes to them. Thirty panels by Jacob Lawrence, leading African American painter of the postwar period, celebrate the contribution of black citizens to the birth of the nation. Tracy-Ann sees the Met has a long way to go, but the journey to greater diversity, fairer representation and visibility has begun.


TUE 01:40 Fred Dibnah's Age of Steam (b03lzh78)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


TUE 02:10 Gareth Edwards’s Great Welsh Adventure (p09z3lpb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 02:40 The Ruth Ellis Files: A Very British Crime Story (b09w3m05)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

WEDNESDAY 21 AUGUST 2024

WED 19:00 Timeshift (b068fvln)
Series 15

The Trains That Time Forgot: Britain's Lost Railway Journeys

Timeshift journeys back to a lost era of rail travel, when trains had names, character and style. Once the pride of the railway companies that ran them, the named train is now largely consigned to railway history.

Writer and presenter Andrew Martin asks why we once named trains and why we don't do so anymore. He embarks on three railway journeys around Britain, following the routes of three of the most famous named trains - the Flying Scotsman, the Cornish Riviera Express and the Brighton Belle. We reflect on travel during the golden age of railways - when the journey itself was as important as reaching your destination - and compare those same journeys with the passenger experience today.


WED 20:00 Pole to Pole (p02j9742)
Plains and Boats and Trains

Michael flies a hot air balloon over one of Kenya’s top game parks before heading on to Tanzania's Ngorongoro Crater and taking the world’s oldest ferry to Zambia.


WED 20:50 Wild (b008mgft)
2007-08 Shorts

Puffin Island

Every summer, thousands of Atlantic puffins congregate on Skomer Island to breed. Over the course of a summer, we follow their adventures on this enchanting island.


WED 21:00 Arena (p032kjgg)
Agatha Christie: An Unfinished Portrait

Profile celebrating the centenary of the famous author Agatha Christie’s birth. Looking at her life, her character and the key moments in her childhood that influenced her writing.


WED 22:00 Dalziel and Pascoe (p0j0s9w8)
Series 4

On Beulah Height

When a eight-year-old girl's body is discovered at a local beauty spot, the murder brings back vivid memories for Dalziel.


WED 23:35 Timeshift (b0103pnb)
Series 10

Crime and Punishment: The Story of Corporal Punishment

Timeshift lifts the veil on the taboo that is corporal punishment. What it reveals is a fascinating history spanning religion, the justice system, sex and education. Today it is a subject that is almost impossible to discuss in public, but it's not that long since corporal punishment was a routine part of life. Surprising and enlightening, the programme invites us to leave our preconceptions at the door so that we may better understand how corporal punishment came to be so important for so long.


WED 00:35 Timeshift (b068fvln)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


WED 01:35 Pole to Pole (p02j9742)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 02:25 Arena (p032kjgg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

THURSDAY 22 AUGUST 2024

THU 19:00 Cricket: Today at the Test (m00226p8)
England v Sri Lanka 2024

First Test: Day Two Highlights

Day two highlights from the first Test between England and Sri Lanka.


THU 20:00 Strangers on a Train (b007906w)
Alfred Hitchcock's suspense classic about two men who plot a perfect murder. When tennis pro Guy Haines meets smooth-talking Bruno Antony in the bar of a train, he finds the stranger sympathetic with his desire to be rid of his clinging wife. The sinister Bruno then proposes that they swap murders: Bruno will murder Guy's wife, and Guy will do away with Bruno's father. From Patricia Highsmith's novel.


THU 21:35 Hitchcock at the NFT (m00226pd)
First broadcast in 1969. In his 70th year, Alfred Hitchcock came to the National Film Theatre in London to talk to fellow director Bryan Forbes and to answer questions from an audience of film enthusiasts.

With scenes from Blackmail (1929), The Lady Vanishes (1938), Psycho (1960), The Birds (1963) and Torn Curtain (1966).


THU 22:35 Psycho (m001qwpt)
Absconding with $40,000 of her employer's money, Marion Crane sets off to join her lover Sam Loomis. After a tiring journey through the rain, she stops at a lonely motel run by Norman Bates, an intense young man living in the remote mansion with his domineering mother.


THU 00:20 Scene by Scene (m001qwq1)
Janet Leigh

Mark Cousins visits Beverly Hills for a revealing conversation with Janet Leigh, star of Psycho, Touch of Evil and The Manchurian Candidate. Leigh talks about her life, including her marriage to Tony Curtis and working with Orson Welles.


THU 01:10 Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? (m0020xx1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Tuesday]


THU 02:10 Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau (b01f1959)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 on Monday]

FRIDAY 23 AUGUST 2024

FRI 19:00 Top of the Pops (b09yng6q)
Steve Wright and Gary Davies present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 22 August 1985. Featuring The Cars, Baltimora, Kate Bush, Princess and Madonna.


FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (m000zwqz)
Bruno Brookes presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 22 August 1991 and featuring Midge Ure, Jason Donovan and Oceanic.


FRI 20:00 BBC Proms (m00226nh)
2024

Mozart, Mendelssohn and A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Mendelssohn’s enchanting music in an exciting, modern semi-staged production of Shakespeare’s masterpiece, Mozart’s famous Clarinet Concerto and for the first time at the Proms, a work by much overlooked romantic composer Mel Bonis.

Bonis’s Salomé kicks off the concert - a musical portrayal of the biblical figure, full of sensual and mysterious sounds. Then, American clarinettist Anthony McGill performs Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, one of his most popular works.

The Prom culminates in Mendelssohn’s magical musical retelling of A Midsummer Night’s Dream brought to life on the Royal Albert Hall stage with readings by actors from Shakespeare’s beloved comedy.

Gemma New conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the National Youth Choir of Scotland’s Chamber Choir. Presented by Clive Myrie with special guest.


FRI 22:00 Queen at the BBC (m00123q7)
A trip through the archives that serves up an hour of killer Queen material, featuring some of the band's greatest musical moments ever delivered to our screens.

The legendary band’s huge international status and punishing touring schedules meant that over the years they made surprisingly few appearances on programmes like Top of the Pops, and tragically for their fans, several of those performances were either lost or never recorded.

This collection brings together the very best of what’s survived from one of the most enduring and best-loved acts in British rock, featuring perhaps the most charismatic and best-loved frontman of all time. Amongst the gems are moments from the band’s celebrated 1975 concert at London’s Hammersmith Odeon and highlights from their trips to the prestigious Montreux Pop Festival in the 1980s – an event that would attract the cream of the world’s music acts every year.

Songs featured take us from the band’s first ever UK hit, Seven Seas of Rhye, through to These Are The Days of Our Lives, Queen’s last hit before Freddie’s untimely death, as well as all the biggest hits, including the iconic Bohemian Rhapsody, frequently voted the nation’s favourite ever song.


FRI 23:00 Freddie Mercury: The Final Act (m00123q9)
The story of the extraordinary final chapter of Freddie Mercury’s life and how, after his death from Aids, Queen staged one of the biggest concerts in history, the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium, to celebrate his life and challenge the prejudices around HIV/Aids.

The film hears from those who performed at the epic gig, including Gary Cherone (Extreme), Roger Daltrey (The Who), Joe Elliott (Def Leppard), Lisa Stansfield and Paul Young, as well as the concert’s promoter, Harvey Goldsmith.

For the first time, Freddie's story is told alongside the experiences of those who tested positive for HIV and lost loved ones during the same period. Medical practitioners, survivors and human rights campaigners, including Peter Tatchell, recount the intensity of living through the Aids pandemic and the moral panic it brought about.


FRI 00:30 A Life in Ten Pictures (m000tzf0)
Series 1

Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury’s image is known around the world. He was one of the most photographed men in history. But could just a handful of photos uncover new truths about someone we think we all know? This documentary throws a unique lens onto an extraordinary life, focusing on ten defining pictures – from iconic shots to private snaps – with their secrets revealed by those who were there and those who knew Freddie Mercury best.


FRI 01:30 The Story of Bohemian Rhapsody (b0074d94)
The full story behind the iconic song, featuring Brian May and Roger Taylor's return to Rockfield Studios, where they re-record the guitar and drum parts and tell the story of how the song came together. Narrated by Richard E Grant, the documentary includes exclusive rare recordings of Freddie Mercury performing the song in studio, Queen's first ever TV performance and the making of the video, as well as interviews with Mercury's friends and family, The Darkness and Bjorn Ulvaeus from Abba.


FRI 02:30 Queen at the BBC (m00123q7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


FRI 03:30 Top of the Pops (b09yng6q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]