SATURDAY 16 AUGUST 2025

SAT 19:00 Wild (b0078zqn)
2005-06 Shorts

Storm Geese

More than 50,000 geese fly out of stormy Atlantic skies to spend winter on the beautiful Scottish island of Islay, making for one of Britain's most impressive and least known winter wildlife spectacles - thousands of handsome barnacle geese and angel-like families of swans set against magnificent mountain and wild ocean backdrops.

Some say the haunting calls of the geese flying at night led to ancient Celtic legends of the hounds of hell yelping as they ran through the skies during very wild storms. The real story is just as remarkable - most of these birds have flown more than 2,000 miles all the way from Greenland.

Why should so many birds gather on one small island for winter? And what impact do they have when they all arrive?


SAT 19:10 Miss Marple (p03rdrl2)
At Bertram's Hotel

Part 1

Miss Marple stays at Bertram's Hotel and is soon caught up in the mystery of a missing cleric, a crime ring, and larceny.


SAT 20:05 Miss Marple (p03rdrl6)
At Bertram's Hotel

Part 2

Miss Marple concludes her stay at Bertram's Hotel by solving the complex case.


SAT 21:00 Beck (m002gsvf)
The Invisible Man

After a brutal murder, Alex teams up with Josef and a suspended Vilhelm. The victim has ties to Howl, a digital university studying men's roles. The case connects to the Balcony Man investigation, bringing Beck back.


SAT 22:30 Hounds (m002hf83)
A father and son in the suburbs of Casablanca get by on petty crimes for a local mob. When a kidnapping goes wrong, they must find a way to dispose of the body.

In Arabic and French with English subtitles.


SAT 00:00 The Good Life (p02r4s11)
Series 3

I Talk to the Trees

The Goods decide to experiment with talking to their plants to see if they will grow more. Margo, meanwhile, plans to run for music society president.


SAT 00:30 Yes Minister (b00784q2)
Series 3

Equal Opportunities

Sitcom about a government minister and the manipulative civil service advisers who surround him. Jim wants to see more women in higher posts, but Sir Humphrey does not agree.


SAT 01:00 Miss Marple (p03rdrl2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:10 today]


SAT 01:55 Miss Marple (p03rdrl6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:05 today]

SUNDAY 17 AUGUST 2025

SUN 19:00 Eisteddfod (m002h5h8)
Eisteddfod 2025 with Huw Stephens

Episode 3

Huw Stephens heads to Wrexham 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.


SUN 20:00 BBC Proms (m002hf7f)
2025

Aurora Orchestra Plays Shostakovich's Fifth

Explore this 20th-century masterpiece from the inside out as Nicholas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra return to the Proms with a signature memorised performance marking the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death. Actors join the orchestra in this immersive performance, bringing to life a symphony born in the shadows of Stalinist Russia, but which would emerge as a powerful statement of artistic defiance.


SUN 21:45 Omnibus (b01b66rs)
Song of Summer: Frederick Delius

Based on Eric Fenby's 1936 memoir Delius As I Knew Him, this film traces the last years of Frederick Delius and Fenby's dedication in giving up five years of his life to helping the blind, paralysed composer set down the unfinished scores he could hear in his head. Perhaps the finest of the series of biographical films that Ken Russell made for the BBC in the 1960s, Song of Summer is an immensely moving story of sacrifice, idealism and musical genius.


SUN 23:00 Delius: Composer, Lover, Enigma (b01j0yys)
The composer Frederick Delius is often pictured as the blind, paralysed and caustic old man he eventually became, but in his youth he was tall, handsome, charming and energetic - not Frederick at all for most of his life, but Fritz. He was a contemporary of Elgar and Mahler, yet forged his own musical language, with which he always tried to capture the pleasure of the moment.

Using evidence from his friend, the Australian composer Percy Grainger, who reported that Delius 'practised immorality with puritanical stubbornness', this film by John Bridcut explores the multiple contradictions of his colourful life. Delius has long been renowned for his depiction of the natural environment, with pieces such as On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, yet his music is usually steeped in the sensuality and eroticism that he himself experienced.

The documentary features specially-filmed performances by the widely-acclaimed Danish interpreters of Delius, the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bo Holten, as well as the chamber choir, Schola Cantorum of Oxford.


SUN 00:30 Victoria Wood: The Secret List (m000qrym)
Series 1

Episode 1

The first of two programmes featuring more than 20 sketches handpicked by Victoria Wood from her first solo series, As Seen on TV.

Back in 2009, Victoria wrote a list of her favourite moments from her seminal 80s series, intending to use it as a compilation show of self-selected best bits. The list remained locked away in her personal office until now. It features familiar favourites and often overlooked gems, but as these two programmes explore, the chosen sketches serve as a prediction of what was to come in an unparalleled career that crossed just about every genre of stage and screen.

This first programme includes contributions from Russell T Davies, Ken Loach and playwright Winsome Pinnock, who dissect Victoria’s groundbreaking early work, why it is still regarded as a watershed moment in British television and the impact it has had on writers since. Meanwhile, Jane Wymark and Joan Armatrading provide an insight into the private side of their friend.

Rare and unseen material from Victoria’s personal collection, including an early university project, rehearsal tapes, notebooks and photos, completes this examination into the work of one of Britain’s most prolific artists.


SUN 01:30 Victoria Wood: The Secret List (m000qsj1)
Series 1

Episode 2

An opportunity to see again sketches handpicked by Victoria Wood exclusively from her seminal sketch show As Seen on TV. The list of her favourite sketches was never aired or mentioned, instead sitting among her personal papers, which after her death in 2016 were boxed up and archived.

This tribute continues to unveil Victoria’s favourite moments and is chock-full of indelible sketches, including Shoe Shop, Two Soups and Acorn Antiques, plus matchless comic big belters At the Chippy and, of course, The Ballad of Barry and Freda aka Let’s Do It.

Acclaimed writers Abby Morgan and Winsome Pinnock discuss why Victoria’s comedy subverted outdated preconceptions about women, ageing and other ‘unmentionables’. Ken Loach and Russell T Davies dissect Victoria’s unrivalled use of language. Meanwhile, superfans celebrate a body of work that continues to resonate and inspire.


SUN 02:30 Omnibus (b01b66rs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:45 today]

MONDAY 18 AUGUST 2025

MON 19:00 Fred Dibnah's Magnificent Monuments (b0074mcj)
Places of Work

Fred Dibnah continues his tour of Britain's great building feats with a look at our places of work.

In Chatham he visits one of our oldest dockyards, while at Armley Mills in Leeds he discovers an early form of fireproofing.

His journey takes him from a 1,000-year-old tithe barn in Sussex, where he tries his hand at thatching, to the symbol of modern architecture, the Lloyd's building.


MON 19:30 Handmade in Japan (b08v8gxl)
Series 1

Samurai Sword

On the island of Kyushu in Japan, one of the country's last remaining families of Samurai swordmakers are continuing a tradition their ancestors began 230 years ago. Working with his brother and son, Shiro Kunimitsu is dedicated to perfecting the art of producing swords of exceptional sharpness and durability.

This film follows Shiro and his family as they lovingly craft a sword - a process that takes many months. We discover the importance of the sword in the ancient Samurai code, its enduring spiritual and symbolic power, and the challenges facing the dwindling numbers of swordmakers in Japan today.


MON 20:00 Vienna: Empire, Dynasty and Dream (b0851kfd)
Episode 2

Simon Sebag Montefiore tells the story of Vienna, triumphant after the Ottoman threat receded at the end of the 17th century. No longer an outpost defending the west from Islamic invaders, the imperial capital was to become the most glittering in the world. The Habsburg emperors transformed the city from a fortress into a great cultural capital. Vienna became a city that would define the arts; a magnet for musicians, including Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.


MON 21:00 Rise of the Nazis (p0gc9bk5)
The Manhunt

The Ratline

The most senior-ranking Nazis have been executed or imprisoned following the international trial at Nuremberg, but many of the worst criminals are still at large. As the American zone's CIC shifts its attention to containing communism, it takes its eyes off wanted Nazis like Klaus Barbie - before making him an extraordinary offer to work as a US agent, hunting communists in return for his freedom.


MON 22:00 Your Life in Their Hands (m002hf7t)
Henry Marsh

An insight into the work of neurosurgeon Henry Marsh. Thirty-year-old Adrian has been diagnosed with a brain tumour. A radical procedure offers hope, but it's risky.


MON 23:00 Art on the BBC (m0013vd0)
Series 2

Turner - Light and Landscape

Art historian Leslie Primo examines six decades of BBC archive to explore what makes JMW Turner such a beloved name in British art. Almost everyone has good things to say about Turner - after all, he’s responsible for some of Britain’s greatest artistic treasures, like The Fighting Temeraire, and Rain, Steam and Speed. But exactly what makes him great is where opinions can differ.

Leslie discovers the TV art historians behind each theory. Was Turner great because he reinvented landscape painting, because he was a radical whose work marked the beginning of modern painting, or because he captured the extraordinary march of the industrial revolution? Through the archives, Leslie meets Fiona Bruce, Simon Schama, Andrew Graham-Dixon and Kenneth Clarke.

Leslie also finds that the disputed nature of Turner’s brilliance has made for some entertaining film-making, from a frock-coat- and powdered-wig-loaded reconstruction of his humble origins as the son of a barber in London’s Covent Garden, to modern art historian Tim Marlow lashing himself to a mast in the middle of a choppy ocean to recreate Turner’s inspiration for Fishermen at Sea.

Even if you think you know Turner, the programme reveals fascinating surprises about the complex man behind some of Britain’s most revered works of art.


MON 00:00 Fred Dibnah's Magnificent Monuments (b0074mcj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 00:30 Handmade in Japan (b08v8gxl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 01:00 Your Life in Their Hands (m002hf7t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


MON 02:00 Rise of the Nazis (p0gc9bk5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

TUESDAY 19 AUGUST 2025

TUE 19:00 Fred Dibnah's Magnificent Monuments (b0074mcv)
Bridges and Tunnels

Fred Dibnah looks at some of the great achievements in civil engineering, from the earliest wrought iron suspension bridge to the Channel Tunnel.


TUE 19:30 Handmade in Japan (p054mclh)
Series 1

Kimono

The second episode takes us to the remarkable island of Amami Oshima in the southern oceans of Japan, to follow the elaborate handmade production of a traditional Japanese kimono. Over 500 people are involved in producing the island's famous mud-dyed silk, which takes many months.

The film follows the painstaking process of the silk being bound, hand-dyed, woven and finally turned into a kimono by a seamstress. Along the way, we not only discover the history of the kimono tradition, but also the many difficulties facing the kimono industry in modern Japan.


TUE 20:00 The Good Life (b00787vb)
Series 3

The Windbreak War

War breaks out between the Goods and the Leadbetters - there is nothing like a good fight over the fence to cement relationships.


TUE 20:30 Yes Minister (b0074rl4)
Series 3

The Challenge

Satirical political sitcom. Jim Hacker takes part in a television interview on local civil defence - but his interrogator is extremely tenacious.


TUE 21:00 Remembers... (m002hf85)
Jasper Carrott Remembers...

Comedy hero Jasper Carrott marks hitting his 80th year with a look back over the unique career that has seen him gracing our screens for the past five decades.

Having started out in the Midlands' folk club circuit in the 1970s, Jasper’s observational humour and storytelling style meant television beckoned from the early days, resulting in award-winning series like Carrott’s Lib, Carrot’s Commercial Breakdown and, eventually, The Detectives.

Here, Jasper tells the story of those series, shares his insights into what makes for a successful career in comedy writing and performing, and reveals some of his favourite moments from over the years, including the name of one particular famous fan, whose unexpected praise was the cherry on the comedy cake.


TUE 21:30 The Ones (b08xdb50)
Series 1 (40-Minute Versions)

The One Jasper Carrott

In 2012, comedian Jasper Carrott returned to the BBC after 13 years for this comedy special, featuring brand new stand-up material; a reprise of The Detectives with Robert Powell; a sketch with his daughter, The Office star Lucy Davis; and a song from his house band, with Rick Wakeman and ELO drummer Bev Bevan.


TUE 22:10 Jasper Carrott: Back to the Front (m002hf87)
A compilation of the best moments from Jasper Carrott's stand-up series Back to the Front.


TUE 23:10 Wogan (m002hf8c)
Jasper Carrott, Sheila Minto, Glen Campbell

Sue Lawley is joined by Jasper Carrott, Sheila Minto and Glen Campbell.


TUE 23:45 The Trials of Oscar Pistorius (p08tfp9w)
Series 1

Part 2

A month after Oscar Pistorius shoots dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, he is out on bail, living at his uncle Arnold’s compound. A forensics expert hired by his legal team helps him to recreate his version of what happened the night of Reeva’s death.

The Blade Runner, as he was nicknamed, became a worldwide superstar at the Athens Olympics while still a high school teenager finding his way. Pistorius set his sights on an ambitious goal: competing against able-bodied athletes in the Olympics. In a long and contentious battle with track and field’s governing body, the IAAF, he won the right to compete in the Olympics in 2008. All that became a distant memory on 19 August 2013, when he was formally charged with the murder of Reeva Steenkamp on what would have been her 30th birthday. With the prosecution adding gun charges to the original complaint, the evidence revealed that he was a very different young man to the one that the world had come to admire.


TUE 01:05 Fred Dibnah's Magnificent Monuments (b0074mcv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


TUE 01:35 Handmade in Japan (p054mclh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 02:05 Vienna: Empire, Dynasty and Dream (b0851kfd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Monday]

WEDNESDAY 20 AUGUST 2025

WED 19:00 Fred Dibnah's Magnificent Monuments (b0074md3)
Pleasure Palaces

Steeplejack Fred Dibnah tours Britain admiring some of its engineering marvels.

This edition focuses on structures that have been built for arts, leisure and entertainment purposes, including the Globe Theatre, the Victoria and Albert Museum and Blackpool Tower.


WED 19:30 Handmade in Japan (p054mcvv)
Series 1

Mingei Pottery

The final episode features one of Japan's most famous family of potters - the Hamadas. Shoji Hamada was a major figure in the Mingei folk art movement of the 1920s and '30s. He helped turn the town of Mashiko into a major centre of ceramics, famous for its thick and rustic pottery. He also spent time in Britain, where he taught renowned St Ives potter Bernard Leach the art of Japanese pottery.

Today, his grandson Tomoo Hamada continues the family tradition. This film follows him at work as he painstakingly shapes his pots and fires them in an old-style wood-fuelled kiln. We also hear how Tomoo played a vital role in saving Mashiko as a pottery centre after many of its kilns were destroyed in the 2011 earthquake.


WED 20:00 The Mystery of the Desert Kites (m002hf7x)
Documentary following an international team of archaeologists and researchers as they explore the extraordinary groups of megastructures that stretch across the Arabian desert. Who built them, when and for what purpose?

Using cutting-edge technologies, the multidisciplinary team uncovers the groundbreaking history of the desert kites. These remarkable and ingenious structures predate the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge, and the team’s discoveries shed new light on a little-known period.


WED 21:00 Tribe (2005) (p009qzgb)
Series 1

Kombai

The jungles of West Papua were once famed for their head-hunters and cannibals. Explorer Bruce Parry travels to live with the Kombai people to discover whether cannibalism is still part of their lives. These dense forests are a rich and complicated mosaic of different tribal groups. From the air, the land seems like mile after mile of empty barren swamp. But this is where the Kombai have stayed hidden from the outside world for generations, pursuing their ancient way of life as hunter-gatherers.


WED 22:00 Remembers... (m002hf7z)
Stephen Poliakoff Remembers... Perfect Strangers

Inspired by a similar incident in Stephen Poliakoff’s life, Perfect Strangers tells the tale of a family reunion, a gathering of the disparate clans of a family long separated. It focuses on Daniel, the son of the family’s ‘black sheep’, following him as the doors into his past and that of his family are opened by the stories he discovers.

Written just a few years before Who Do You Think You Are? hit our screens, it explores the increasing interest in genealogy; the ability the internet gave us to investigate our past; and the power of family trees, archives, photos and the secrets they contain.

Stephen tells us of the amazing cast: Lyndsay Duncan, Matthew MacFadyen, in his first leading role, and Michael Gambon. He reveals how he persuaded Michael not to go and shoot a cameo in a Mel Smith film on the first day of filming and talks of unexpectedly getting the free run of Claridge’s as a location and accidentally running into Margaret Thatcher mid-filming. He also explains the background to the stories: family bravery in the Holocaust, a taxi driver telling him an extraordinary World War II evacuee tale, and his own wish to explore and talk about the struggles of mental health.

Perfect Strangers is an ambitious and vital piece. Listen as Stephen gives an insight into the making of this landmark BBC drama.


WED 22:15 Perfect Strangers (p032kkvz)
Part 1

Only child Daniel attends an extraordinary family reunion with his parents and discovers an exciting world of possibilities.


WED 23:45 Perfect Strangers (p032kkw2)
Part 2

Daniel discovers the wartime story of Edith, Violet and Grace. Raymond suffers a stroke.


WED 00:45 Perfect Strangers (p032kkw7)
Part 3

Aunt Alice enlightens Daniel about Richard, and he arranges for her to be reunited with her surrogate children. Stephen finds a clue to Raymond's past.


WED 02:15 Fred Dibnah's Magnificent Monuments (b0074md3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


WED 02:45 Handmade in Japan (p054mcvv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]

THURSDAY 21 AUGUST 2025

THU 19:00 Michael Caine: Acting in Film (m001k2q4)
Michael Caine gives a masterclass on the craft of acting for the silver screen by conducting a workshop with five actors using scenes from some of his films.


THU 20:00 The Italian Job (m002hdd6)
Classic comedy caper starring Michael Caine. Just out of jail, Charlie Croker inherits a plan for a £4 million gold heist in Italy. Now he just has to overcome a few problems - like lack of money, not having a gang and the anger of the Mafia!


THU 21:35 Talking Pictures (m002hf8r)
The Silence of the Lambs

Celia Imrie takes a trip through the BBC archives on a forensic examination of one of cinema’s most frightening franchises, The Silence of the Lambs.

Through interviews with Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster and director Jonathan Demme, we discover how Thomas Harris’s best-selling novels first made the leap from page to screen, and how Hopkins came to create one of the great movie monsters in Dr Hannibal ‘the Cannibal’ Lecter - a character whose notoriety became so phenomenally successful, audiences across the world were left hungry for more.


THU 22:20 The Silence of the Lambs (m002hdd8)
FBI trainee Clarice Starling, enticing insights from confined killer Hannibal Lecter, shares her nightmare memory in the hope of stopping a serial killer before his latest victim dies. Multi-award-winning thriller.


THU 00:10 On the Waterfront (b013cfmk)
Oscar-winning drama. A one-time boxing hopeful learns about responsibility through his love for the sister of a murdered docker. Music by Leonard Bernstein.


THU 01:55 Art on the BBC (m0013vd0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 on Monday]


THU 02:55 Tribe (2005) (p009qzgb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Wednesday]

FRIDAY 22 AUGUST 2025

FRI 19:00 Top of the Pops (m002hf77)
Jo Whiley presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 17 April 1998 and featuring Billie Myers, Ultra Naté, Ma$e, Ultra, K-Ci & JoJo, Ben Folds Five, Robbie Williams and Run-DMC vs Jason Nevins.


FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (m002hf79)
Jayne Middlemiss presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 24 April 1998 and featuring Ultra Naté, Savage Garden, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Tamperer feat Maya, Busta Rhymes, 187 Lockdown, Tzant and Run-DMC vs Jason Nevins.


FRI 20:00 BBC Proms (m002hf7c)
2025

Beethoven's Ninth at the Proms

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – one of the most iconic and uplifting works in the classical canon – roars to life in the Royal Albert Hall. Presented by trumpet superstar Alison Balsom, this is a celebration of music at its most profound and exhilarating.

Fabio Luisi conducts the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Choir with a stellar quartet of soloists for an unforgettable performance.


FRI 21:30 Top of the Pops (m000scfy)
Nicky Campbell presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 23 August 1990 and featuring The Human League, Tina Turner and Cliff Richard.


FRI 22:00 Top of the Pops (b01n1tsd)
Noel Edmonds presents the pop chart, first broadcast on 25 August 1977 and featuring Eddie and the Hot Rods, The Boomtown Rats, Thin Lizzy, The Adverts, Page Three, Deniece Williams, Space, The Floaters and a Legs & Co dance sequence.


FRI 22:30 Love Songs at the BBC (b00ymh70)
A Valentine's Day Special

It's a time for guilty pleasures, for courtship, for declarations of love, for looking someone in the eye and whispering sweet nothings, accompanied by a compilation of some of the greatest and squishiest love songs from the likes of Celine Dion, Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes, Jason and Kylie, 10cc and Lionel Richie, all from the Top of the Pops era. If Hot Chocolate and Chaka Khan don't get the temperatures rising, then nothing will.


FRI 23:30 Love Songs at the BBC (m001j6h7)
Volume 2

A stunning selection of perfect performances of love songs from the BBC's music archives, including the sounds of Nat King Cole, Shania Twain, Billy Joel, Ed Sheeran and many, many more.


FRI 00:30 Love Songs at the BBC (m001wcj2)
Volume 3

This third volume of romantic hits from the BBC archives includes classic tracks from the 70s, 80s and 90s, with songs from likes of The Carpenters, The Three Degrees, Simply Red, Meatloaf and Sting, as well as some 21st-century songs to swoon to from Rihanna and Harry Styles.


FRI 01:30 Top of the Pops (m002hf77)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


FRI 02:00 Top of the Pops (m002hf79)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


FRI 02:30 Top of the Pops (m000scfy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:30 today]


FRI 03:00 Top of the Pops (b01n1tsd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]