SATURDAY 10 JANUARY 2026

SAT 19:00 Yellowstone: Wildest Winter to Blazing Summer (b087vhpv)
The Wildest Winter

Patrick follows the grizzly bears that are taking a risk with the weather by leaving their winter dens early. Hungry wolves are struggling to bring down their elk prey in the unusually shallow snow. And for great grey owls, it is the iciness of the snow that is hampering their hunts.

Yellowstone's winter is always one of the most brutal on the planet. But 2016 saw weather records broken, and the wildlife was forced to adapt to survive. Kate Humble gets to grips with the science behind this remarkable season, from understanding the importance of the snowpack's structure as the melt begins to uncovering why Yellowstone's unique geology poses problems for some grazers' teeth.


SAT 20:00 The Good Old Days (b06yrv6l)
Leonard Sachs presents an edition of the old-time music hall programme, from the stage of the City Varieties Theatre, Leeds. With Ronnie Corbett, Kenneth McKeller, Rosemary Squires, the Looneys and members of the Players Theatre, London.


SAT 20:45 Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (p05b5thp)
Series 1

Eye Witness

Hetty is called on by a pair of worried parents, whose deaf son, Malcolm, has disappeared while out birdwatching. Is foul play at hand?


SAT 21:35 Remembers... (m002pxsn)
Mike Leigh Remembers... Nuts in May

Mike Leigh, icon of British TV and film, looks back on one of his most popular and influential television plays, 1976's classic camping comedy Nuts in May. The piece helped put him on the map and did the same for his two stars, Alison Steadman and Roger Sloman, and their characters, Candice Marie and Keith.

Since it was first broadcast, the film's reputation as a landmark moment in British comedy history has grown, and here, Leigh shares the story behind how it came to life all those years ago and why he believes it remains important today.


SAT 21:50 Play for Today (b00jzj72)
Series 6

Nuts in May

Director Mike Leigh’s iconic tale of camping holidays and all the hazards involved. Their Morris packed to the gills, the punctilious Keith and the more spontaneous Candice Marie arrive at a Dorset campground for ten nights of idyllic bliss.

It starts off pretty perfect; it's peaceful, they go sightseeing, eat vegetarian food and go in search of raw milk. Then a fellow with a loud radio pitches his tent near theirs. Things get worse when a couple arrive on a motorcycle, make noisy love in their tent and start an illegal campfire.

Will Keith and Candice Marie find a peaceful corner or are they doomed to brawl with the noisy and unwashed? (1976)


SAT 23:10 Arena (p032kj8c)
Mike Leigh: Making Plays

Dramatist Mike Leigh talks to Arena about his work and demonstrates his unique processes of building the characters of his dramas.


SAT 00:30 The Many Faces Of... (b00wylqq)
Series 1

Alison Steadman

A documentary in which Alison Steadman talks about her impressive career, featuring archive clips, both treasured and rarely seen, weaved together with sincere testimony from friends and colleagues.

The programme contains footage and stills from programmes such as Gavin and Stacey, Abigail's Party, Newshounds, Nuts in May and her early appearances in Frost's Weekly. It progresses from her earliest appearances on screen to what drove her choices, for good or ill, and their consequences.


SAT 01:30 Yes, Prime Minister (b0074rw6)
Series 1

One of Us

The papers of a recently deceased head of MI5 show that he was, at one stage, spying for Russia. Worse still, he was investigated and cleared by an internal Civil Service Committee of Enquiry headed by Sir Humphrey Appleby.


SAT 02:00 Yes, Prime Minister (b0074rwy)
Series 2

Man Overboard

Sir Humphrey must stop Jim supporting a plan to move armed service jobs from the south to the north east to ease unemployment.


SAT 02:35 Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (p05b5thp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:45 today]

SUNDAY 11 JANUARY 2026

SUN 19:00 Snooker: The Masters (m002px4q)
2026

Day 1, Part 2

Coverage from the first day of the 2026 Masters snooker tournament.


SUN 22:00 Shackleton's Cabin (m001grr7)
On 5 January 1922, world-famous Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton died of a heart attack in his cabin aboard The Quest during his final expedition to the South Pole. Moored in Norway, The Quest was broken apart. However, one of the dockers had the foresight to remove Shackleton’s cabin. He took it home and it served as his family’s garden shed for three generations.

Nearly 100 years after Shackleton’s death, the cabin has been donated to a museum in the explorer’s hometown, where master craftsman and Shackleton enthusiast Sven Habermann painstakingly restores it to its former glory. With only one surviving photograph of the cabin’s interior, Sven goes to extreme lengths to retrace every detail, from the wood to the original wallpaper used. Shackleton’s Cabin follows Sven as he rebuilds the cabin and explores the life and final days of his hero.


SUN 22:50 Timeshift (b016pwgw)
Series 11

Of Ice and Men

Timeshift reveals the history of the frozen continent, finding out why the most inhospitable place on the planet has exerted such a powerful hold on the imagination of explorers, scientists, writers and photographers.

Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest place on the globe. Only a handful of people have experienced its desolate beauty, with the first explorers setting foot here barely a hundred years ago.

From the logbooks of Captain Cook to the diaries of Scott and Shackleton, from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner to HP Lovecraft, it is a film about real and imaginary tales of adventure, romance and tragedy that have played out against a stark white backdrop.

We relive the race to the Pole and the 'Heroic Age' of Antarctic exploration, and find out what it takes to survive the cold and the perils of 'polar madness'. We see how Herbert Ponting's photographs of the Scott expedition helped define our image of the continent and find out why the continent witnessed a remarkable thaw in Russian and American relations at the height of the Cold War.

We also look at the intriguing story of who actually owns Antarctica and how science is helping us reimagine a frozen wasteland as something far more precious.

Interviewees include Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Francis Spufford, Huw Lewis-Jones, Sara Wheeler, Henry Worsley, Prof David Walton and Martin Hartley.


SUN 23:50 Horizon (b08tj2zr)
2017

Antarctica - Ice Station Rescue

Britain's state-of-the-art Antarctic research base Halley VI is in trouble. Built on the Brunt Ice Shelf, it sits atop a massive slab of ice that extends far beyond the Antarctic shoreline. But the ice is breaking apart and just 6km from the station is an enormous crevasse, which threatens to separate Halley from the rest of the continent, setting the £28 million base adrift on a massive iceberg.

So Halley needs to move. But this is probably the toughest moving job on earth, and the team of 90 who have been tasked with the mission aren't just architectural or engineering experts. They are plumbers, mechanics and farmers from across the UK and beyond - ordinary men and women on an extraordinary adventure. Their practical skills will be what makes or breaks this move. The rescue mission has one thing in its favour: Halley was built on giant skis that mean it can be moved - in theory. But no-one has actually done it before.

Embedded with the team, BBC film-maker Natalie Hewit spent three months living on the ice, following these everyday heroes as they battle in the most extreme environment on earth to move this vital polar research station.


SUN 00:50 Yellowstone: Wildest Winter to Blazing Summer (b087vhpv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 01:50 Shackleton's Cabin (m001grr7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


SUN 02:40 Timeshift (b016pwgw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:50 today]

MONDAY 12 JANUARY 2026

MON 19:00 Snooker: The Masters (m002px4s)
2026

Day 2, Part 2

Coverage from the second day of the 2026 Masters snooker tournament.


MON 22:00 Lee Miller: A Life on the Front Line (m000hy2p)
When Lee Miller returned to New York from Europe in October 1932, newspaper reporters were waiting to greet her as her ship docked. Disembarking in a smart beret and fur-collared coat, she smiled for the journalist from the New York World-Telegram. When he referred to her as 'one of the most photographed girls in Manhattan', she retorted, 'I'd rather take a picture than be one.'

Lee Miller is one of the most remarkable female icons of the 20th century. A model turned photographer turned war reporter, Miller chose to live her life by her own rules.

This film celebrates a subject who defied anyone who tried to pin her down, put her on a pedestal or pigeonhole her in any way. It tells the story of a trailblazer, often at odds with the morality of the day, who refused to be subjugated by the dominant male figures around her.


MON 23:00 The Search for the Lost Manuscript: Julian of Norwich (b07l6bd0)
Medieval art historian Dr Janina Ramirez tells the incredible story of a book hidden for centuries in the shadows of history, the first book ever written in English by a woman, Julian of Norwich, in 1373.

Revelations of Divine Love dared to present an alternative vision of man's relationship with God, a theology fundamentally at odds with the church of Julian's time. The book was suppressed for 500 years. It re-emerged in the 20th century as an iconic text for the women's movement and was acknowledged as a literary masterpiece.

Janina follows the trail of the lost manuscript, travelling from Norwich to Cambrai in northern France to discover how the book survived and the brave women who championed it.


MON 00:00 Quentin Blake: The Drawing of My Life (m0012xpw)
In this celebration of one of Britain’s best-loved artists, first broadcast in 2021, illustrator and author Sir Quentin Blake tells the story of his 70-year-long career in his own words and with his own pictures. Specially for this documentary, he is filmed creating an extraordinary new work: a canvas 30 feet long and 7 feet high, on which self-portraits and classic characters emerge in the instantly recognisable, energetic and ebullient style that has taken root in the imaginations of successive generations of children and parents.

Some of his closest collaborators and biggest admirers pay tribute – among them David Walliams, Michael Rosen, Lauren Child, Chris Riddell, Steven Appleby, Dapo Adeola, Josie Long and Emma Chichester Clark. There are also readings of works Blake has illustrated, performed by Joanna Lumley, Peter Capaldi and Ore Oduba.


MON 01:00 Play for Today (b00jzj72)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:50 on Saturday]


MON 02:20 Arena (p032kj8c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:10 on Saturday]

TUESDAY 13 JANUARY 2026

TUE 19:00 Snooker: The Masters (m002px4x)
2026

Day 3, Part 2

Coverage from the third day of the 2026 Masters snooker tournament.


TUE 22:00 The Last Battle of the Vikings (b01p9fwg)
Nowhere in the British Isles was the Viking connection longer-lasting or deeper than in Scotland. Hundreds of years after their first hit-and-run raids, the Norsemen still dominated huge swathes of the country. But storm clouds were gathering. In 1263 the Norwegian king Haakon IV assembled a fleet of 120 longships to counter Scottish raids on the Norse Hebrides. It was a force comparable in size to the Spanish Armada over three centuries later. But like the Armada, the Norse fleet was eventually defeated by a powerful storm. Driven ashore near present-day Largs, the beleaguered Norsemen were attacked by a Scottish army. The outcome of this vicious encounter would mark the beginning of the end of Norse power in Scotland.

Marine archaeologist Dr Jon Henderson tells the incredible story of the Norsemen in Scotland. Visiting fascinating archaeological sites across Scotland and Norway, he reveals that, although the battle at Largs marked the end of an era for the Norsemen, their presence continued to shape the identity and culture of the Scottish nation to the present day.


TUE 23:00 The Hunt for Lady Olive and the German Submarine (m0023k9p)
A great maritime mystery lies deep beneath the waters of the Channel Islands. On the morning of 19 February 1917, German submarine UC-18 opened fire on Royal Navy Q-ship the Lady Olive. As the U-boat drew near to assess the damage it had inflicted, the Lady Olive counter-attacked. Both vessels were said to have sunk. For decades, divers and historians have searched to discover their fate and understand the fascinating story that led to this encounter, but no-one has come close to finding the wrecks.

The documentary follows film-maker Karl Taylor and his specialist team over four years as they search to discover what happened on that fateful February day in 1917.

Principal underwater photography: Karl Taylor and Peter Frankland


TUE 00:00 Timeshift (b0074qnd)
The History of Pubs

The pub has been the mainstay of British society since medieval times, a cornerstone of any community playing a unique role in national life. But in the past 50 years the pub has undergone massive change. This programme examines the core values of this definitively British institution and questions its survival. With contributions from Jeremy Hardy, Rowan Pelling and Pete Brown. Narrated by Arthur Smith.


TUE 00:40 The Witness Is a Whale (m001mwfg)
A thousand years ago, many millions of whales dominated the sea, with their ancient behaviours vital to the well-being of the oceans. These marine mammals are the ambassadors between one world and another, land and sea, their close communities only now being truly researched and understood. They are still a keystone species in our fragile ecosystem today, with crucial impact on our seas and the life contained within them. But whaling decimated their numbers over the last 150 years, in particular the whaling industry run by the KGB during the Cold War.

In a basement in Odessa, top-secret Soviet whaling reports record the unimaginable number of whales killed. This film tells how surviving members of the Soviet leadership, and original Soviet whalers, uncover these secret records, allowing us to understand the magnitude of historical whale populations and the shocking impact of commercial whaling.

Whale populations are now largely cherished across the world as we begin to understand these amazing animals, their intelligence and their important contribution to the sustainability and health of the oceans.


TUE 01:30 The Last Battle of the Vikings (b01p9fwg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


TUE 02:30 The Search for the Lost Manuscript: Julian of Norwich (b07l6bd0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 on Monday]

WEDNESDAY 14 JANUARY 2026

WED 19:00 Hidden Wales: Last Chance to Save (m0014zsh)
Writer and adventurer Will Millard returns with more of Wales’s hidden wonders as he explores some of the country’s forgotten historic buildings.

In Wales, we are in danger of losing vital pieces of history that tell us who we once were. Beautiful buildings that are architectural gems but also some of the most endangered in the UK. These extraordinary structures, which can give us vital insights into how we once used to live, are in danger of disappearing forever.

From extravagant mansions to a 500-year-old farmhouse, crumbling chapels to a massive military fort, and from spectacular industrial sites to a stunning 19th-century theatre, Will travels the length and breadth of Wales to find some of our most vulnerable old buildings, telling their incredible histories and meeting the passionate individuals who are trying to rescue them before it is too late.


WED 20:00 The Cambridgeshire Crucifixion (m001v60k)
In 2017, a routine archaeological dig was taking place on the site of a proposed housing development in the village of Fenstanton in the Cambridgeshire Fens. When human remains were found alongside a variety of Roman artefacts, none of the team at Albion Archaeology saw anything out of the ordinary. But once the bones were washed back at HQ, something highly unusual was uncovered: a nail through the heelbone of one of the individuals. Could this be evidence of a Roman crucifixion? When they did some research, they found that only one confirmed example had ever been unearthed before, discovered in the 1960s in Jerusalem. To find out more, they called in renowned osteoarchaeologist Dr Corinne Duhig to investigate.

With exclusive access to Corinne’s investigation and the remains themselves, The Cambridgeshire Crucifixion sets out to find out who this person was, how they lived and why they were put to death in this notoriously gruesome way. We perform a CT scan, DNA and isotope analysis of the remains, and use them to create a cutting-edge virtual autopsy of the skeleton, conducted by Corinne and one of her former students, biologist Prof Ben Garrod.

A supporting cast of expert contributors help to analyse the artefacts found at the Fenstanton site and reveal a compelling picture of life in Roman Britain in the 1st century CE. The film culminates in a world first: a full forensic facial reconstruction of a victim of Roman crucifixion, conducted by world-leading expert Joe Mullins.


WED 21:00 Snooker: The Masters (m002px4z)
2026

Day 4, Part 3

Coverage from the fourth day of the 2026 Masters snooker tournament.


WED 22:00 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (b0074tlq)
Series 1

Smiley Sets a Trap

Smiley's investigation to snare the traitor at the heart of the Circus leads him to Jerry Westerby, a Fleet Street journalist.


WED 22:40 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (b0074tmm)
Series 1

Flushing Out the Mole

In the final part of John le Carre's classic story, George Smiley's search for the mole at the heart of the Circus finally comes to an end.


WED 23:25 Inside the Bat Cave (m000nx12)
A remarkable journey into the secret world of one of the most endangered and least understood animals on earth – bats. With cutting-edge night-vision cameras and ultrasonic detectors, this programme follows a greater horseshoe bat roost for four months during the summer of 2019, capturing the hidden life of the colony as never before. Witness the birth of a new generation of pups and follow their progress towards their perilous maiden flight outside the roost.


WED 00:25 Deep Down and Dirty: The Science of Soil (b040y925)
For billions of years our planet was devoid of life, but something transformed it into a vibrant, living planet. That something was soil.

It's a much-misunderstood substance, often dismissed as 'dirt', something to be avoided. Yet the crops we eat, the animals we rely on, the very oxygen we breathe, all depend on the existence of the plant life that bursts from the soil every year.

In this film, gardening expert Chris Beardshaw explores where soil comes from, what it's made of and what makes it so essential to life. Using specialist microphotography, he reveals it as we've never seen it before - an intricate microscopic landscape, teeming with strange and wonderful life forms.

It's a world where the chaos of life meets the permanence of rock, the two interacting with each other to make a living system of staggering complexity that sustains all life on Earth.

Chris explores how man is challenging this most precious resource on our planet and how new science is seeking to preserve it.


WED 01:25 Hidden Wales: Last Chance to Save (m0014zsh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


WED 02:25 Inside the Bat Cave (m000nx12)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:25 today]

THURSDAY 15 JANUARY 2026

THU 19:00 Yorkshire Wolds Way (b08bbmyb)
Episode 2

Adventurer Paul Rose continues his exploration of the Yorkshire Wolds Way, arguably Britain's least well-known national walking trail. The 79-mile trail starts at the Humber Estuary and ends at the Yorkshire seaside resort of Filey. In this episode, Paul takes to the skies to get a unique view of this stretch of chalk downland and gets a special invitation to a military base that's been keeping the country safe since the start of the Second World War.


THU 19:30 Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village (b0bsrqch)
Series 1

Milton Abbas

The village of Milton Abbas in Dorset perfectly captures our romantic notion of what the idyllic English village should look like. But as archaeologist Ben Robinson reveals, behind it lurks a history of one man's wealth and power. With help from local historians, Ben learns how the local landowner in the 18th century destroyed a nearby town, uprooting its residents, because it ruined the view from his house. The landscape was transformed and a new village was built as part of his showpiece estate.


THU 20:00 The Stuarts in Exile (b06bflr4)
Episode 1

In 1715, the Old Pretender James Francis Stuart launched one of British history's most audacious and longest running rebellions to reclaim his throne from the Hanoverian king George I.

In this two-part 300th-anniversary special, Dr Clare Jackson tells the story of The Stuarts in Exile and sheds new light on the political, military and cultural threat the Jacobites posed to the embryonic British state. Although the '15' ultimately failed, it crystallized the stark choice facing those living in early 18th-century Britain.

Are you for the Stuarts or are you for Hanoverians?


THU 21:00 Snooker: The Masters (m002px51)
2026

Day 5, Part 3

Coverage from the fifth day of the 2026 Masters snooker tournament.


THU 22:00 Where Eagles Dare (m0026pqz)
Seven paratroopers, led by a British intelligence officer, are sent on a seemingly impossible mission. They must enter an almost impregnable Nazi stronghold, the Castle of the Eagles, to rescue a high-ranking American officer. But the men's dangerous task is threatened by a traitor in the group.


THU 00:30 The Cambridgeshire Crucifixion (m001v60k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Wednesday]


THU 01:25 Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village (b0bsrqch)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 01:55 Yorkshire Wolds Way (b08bbmyb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


THU 02:25 The Stuarts in Exile (b06bflr4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

FRIDAY 16 JANUARY 2026

FRI 19:00 Top of the Pops (m002px53)
Jamie Theakston presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 5 February 1999 and featuring Bryan Adams and Melanie C, Garbage, Inner City, The Divine Comedy, Leilani, Dru Hill, The Offspring and Armand Van Helden ft Duane Harden.


FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (m002px55)
Jamie Theakston presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 12 February 1999 and featuring M People, A+, Mansun, Mirrorball, Soulsearcher, Tayana Ali, Blondie and Precious.


FRI 20:00 Snooker: The Masters (m002px57)
2026

Day 6, Part 3

Coverage from the sixth day of the 2026 Masters snooker tournament.


FRI 22:00 Top of the Pops (b0bbzsv3)
Mike Read and Dixie Peach present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 16 January 1986 and featuring Fine Young Cannibals, Dire Straits, a-ha, Mr Mister, Pet Shop Boys, and Cherrelle with Alexander O'Neal.


FRI 22:30 Top of the Pops (m0026cjl)
Nicky Campbell presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 10 January 1997 and featuring Kenickie, Kavana, Tori Amos, Runrig, Orbital, Terrorvision, Blur and Spice Girls.


FRI 23:00 Bowie at the BBC (b0888f7r)
A chronology of clips from the BBC archive giving an overview of David Bowie's extraordinary career from 1964 to 2016. Blending interviews and performances from music programmes, documentaries, news outlets and chat shows, this portrait of Bowie both at his most thoughtful and his most opportunistically promotional is a series of snapshots into a rapidly evolving career across music, films and the theatre.

From a 17-year-old David Jones interviewed by Cliff Michelmore in 1964, on to 1973 when in Ziggy mode Bowie, Ronson and co gave their seminal Top of the Pops performance of Starman, and then to 2000 when Bowie reimagined himself as the cover of Hunky Dory to storm Glastonbury, this is a journey through many Bowies.

The programme includes other classic Top of the Pops, The Old Grey Whistle Test and Later... with Jools' performances and looks at Bowie the actor with interviews about his roles in The Elephant Man, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and Labyrinth.

Bowie at the BBC gives an insight into the many ways Bowie chose to present himself at different moments in time, revealing how innovative, funny, surprising and influential he always was.


FRI 00:00 David Bowie at the BBC (b01k0y0t)
David Bowie in concert at the BBC Radio Theatre. Songs include Wild Is the Wind, Ashes to Ashes, Absolute Beginners, The Man Who Sold the World and Fame.


FRI 01:00 David Bowie: Finding Fame (m0002jlw)
This is the David Bowie story you don’t know: the story of how David Robert Jones became David Bowie, how David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust and how Ziggy became immortal, changing the musical landscape as he did so. The story that finally makes sense of one of the greatest icons of the 20th and 21st centuries. Part three of Francis Whately’s Bowie trilogy.


FRI 02:30 Top of the Pops (m002px53)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


FRI 03:00 Top of the Pops (m002px55)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


FRI 03:30 Top of the Pops (b0bbzsv3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]