Coverage of the evening session of day one at the 2022 World Snooker Championship.
Rick enjoys a long weekend in Berlin, where history and the avant garde dwell enticingly side by side. A city that once made history with its divisive wall teems today with an overwhelming array of innovative chefs offering delicious seasonal creations like pureed sunflower seeds, Jerusalem artichoke flans and crushed frozen pine nuts. Loved by the likes of Garbo, Charlie Chaplin and Escoffier there's still a cornucopia of choice for those with a more traditional temperament, with Eisbein, meatballs and sausages topping every menu in town.
DCI John is informed about another murder victim and she and DS Vaughan go to the scene to investigate. Rachel is there in her capacity as a pathologist and she tells Cadi her initial thoughts on the murders. Cadi tries to encourage Rachel to talk about their future but Rachel is still hurt and wants to keep their relationship on a work footing only.
John Darwin was a real life Reggie Perrin who faked his death to fund a better life, disappearing at sea in a canoe, while his wife, Anne, played the grieving widow. Even the couple's sons were fooled.
This compelling drama documentary has collaboration from the journalist who had exclusive access to Anne Darwin in the vital few days before her arrest and to whom she confessed all.
As the story unraveled in the glare of the media spotlight, Anne Darwin desperately tried to keep the lie intact.
This unique telling of this extraordinary tale uses as its basis the three very different versions of the story Anne Darwin told to try and fool the press and the police.
Sir Terry Wogan takes a trip down memory lane, looking back on his favourite magical moments from the Wogan show. In this episode, he remembers his encounters with some of the entertainment world's top stars, including Liza Minelli, Tina Turner, Robin Williams, Elton John and Sammy Davis Junior - plus Terry displays his own singing talents, accompanied by Sir Geraint Evans.
Terry Wogan presents a compilation programme celebrating the unique talent of Arthur Lowe. Featuring interviews with those who knew him, and footage from both his classic comedy performances and his many straight roles.
Award-winning British choir Tenebrae, under the direction of Nigel Short, is one of the world’s leading vocal ensembles, renowned for its passion and precision. Normally before Easter, Tenebrae would be preparing for one of its busiest periods in the musical calendar. But as the world finds itself engulfed in one of the biggest health emergencies of modern history, Tenebrae, like many other artistic groups, has been forced to cancel its busy Easter season. Around the world, audiences are unable to attend and hear live music.
In this performance, filmed exclusively for BBC Music, Tenebrae once again breaks new ground in a programme of music for Easter, with all 20 of its singers filmed and recorded separately as they isolate themselves in their own homes. Under the direction of Nigel Short conducting via video link, Tenebrae sings a concert for Easter, including Gregorio Allegri's stunning Miserere, at a time when the world has never needed the medicine of music more.
Tenebrae's repertoire for this specially filmed performance includes the following:
Join three young, orphaned cheetah siblings as they set out across the savannah in Namibia in search of prey. The orphaned cats are being reintroduced into the wilds of Namibia, and specially designed on-board cameras are being used to monitor their progress.
The summer rains have turned the land into a verdant scene, unleashing new sounds, sights and smells for the young cats to experience. As they move through the acacia woodland, thorny scrub and open grassy plains, they encounter herds of gemsbok and zebra and the occasional warthog. These are encounters that will test the young cheetah's hunting skills.
At this age, the siblings are still learning the ropes and are curious about everything they come across. The siblings pursue zebra and chase a warthog, but both are more than a match for them. Undeterred, the siblings continue on their journey, next testing their prowess on a herd of gemsbok that immediately turn the tables and chase the cheetah.
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 a ginormous 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.
SUNDAY 17 APRIL 2022
SUN 19:00 BBC Young Dancer (m0013c98)
2022
Episode 1
BBC Young Dancer is back! Presented this year by Radio 1’s Clara Amfo, it’s looking for the very best young dance talent from across the UK. This time round, the competition is open to anyone aged 16-24 whose passion is dance. Performers from nearly every corner of the dance world have thrown their hat in the ring for a chance at the title and this life-changing opportunity.
Seventy-two hopefuls compete in face-to-face auditions – in ballet, street dance, contemporary, South Asian, tap and even clog dancing – for the chance to make it through to the final ten who will go on to a brand new dance residency in Dartington Hall in Devon. Across the series, the finalists will be put through their paces by leading choreographers to prepare new works for the BBC Young Dancer final in London’s Roundhouse where the winner will be crowned.
The auditions are overseen by an impressive judging team with a host of accolades between them. Head judge Emma Gladstone OBE, former artistic director of London’s international festival Dance Umbrella is joined by some of the industry’s best talent. They are:
Award-winning choreographer and contemporary/hip-hop dancer Dickson Mbi, who has worked with the likes of Robbie Williams and The Black Eyed Peas.
English National Ballet’s former principal ballerina Begona Cao.
South Asian teacher, choreographer and dancer Geetha Sridhar, with 30 years’ experience behind her.
Gianna Gi, a commercial and hip-hop dance phenomenon.
Independent dance artist Annie Hanauer, a specialist in bringing disabled and non-disabled artists together.
Seeta Patel, a leading South Asian and contemporary choreographer and film-maker.
Award-winning multi-disciplinary artist Ivan Blackstock, who includes Beyonce in the list of names he has collaborated with.
Between them, they’re looking for the ten most exciting dancers. And with a phenomenal standard this year, it’s not going to be an easy challenge.
SUN 20:00 Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers (m0016l0h)
One of the finest of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas in a sumptuous production by Scottish Opera. Sunny, funny and with more 'tra-la-las' per square inch than any other opera in the canon, The Gondoliers is a joy from start to finish. This witty satire is jam-packed with unforgettable star roles, musical highlights and dancing, including numbers such as Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes, Regular Royal Queen and the Cachucha.
The Gondoliers is a charming poke at the appeals and pitfalls of rulership, privilege and cronyism. Two happy-go-lucky Venetian gondoliers, Marco and Giuseppe, discover that one of them is, in fact, heir to the throne of a distant kingdom. True to their (adopted) republican roots, they set off together to rule in idealistic if somewhat chaotic style.
Marco and Giuseppe have just chosen their brides, Gianetta and Tessa, when their lives are thrown into turmoil by the arrival of the grand inquisitor, Don Alhambra, who informs them that one of them has acquired the throne of the distant Kingdom of Barataria. The Duke of Plaza-Toro brings his daughter to meet Don Alhambra because she has been betrothed to the new monarch - whichever he is. No-one can identify which of the gondoliers is to be the king, so they both agree to go and rule jointly and according to their strict republican instincts. It’s a fine but exhausting ideal, as they find that ‘equality’ means they end up doing all the work themselves.
The Duke of Plaza-Toro, bringing his daughter, arrives in the chaotic kingdom, and after vain attempts to teach the monarchs decorum and judgement, the confusion and incompetence is resolved, and the rightful monarch is in place.
In a co-production by D’Oyly Carte Opera and State Opera South Australia, Stuart Maunder directs the production with fun, verve and taste, with Scottish Opera’s music director, Derek Clark, conducting one of Arthur Sullivan’s most attractive and affecting scores.
The designs are by Dick Bird, drawing on views of Venice by Canaletto and creating colourful costumes full of style and wit. Isabel Baquero has devised an energetic and boisterous choreography that matches the joy of the production.
SUN 22:20 Opera Italia (b00sjdmp)
Beginnings
Three-part series tracing the history of Italian opera presented by Antonio Pappano, world-renowned conductor and music director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The series features sumptuous music, stunning Italian locations and some of the biggest names in opera as contributors.
In the first programme, Pappano takes a whistle-stop tour of the beginnings of opera, from Monteverdi to Rossini. He also looks at the works of two non-Italian composers, Handel and Mozart, both of whom were pivotal in the development of the art form. Along the way he enlists the help of some of the world's greatest singers - Juan Diego Florez, Joyce DiDonato, Danielle de Niese, Sarah Connolly and Pietro Spagnoli.
SUN 23:20 Opera Italia (b00sm18t)
Viva Verdi
Three-part series tracing the history of Italian opera presented by Antonio Pappano, conductor and music director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The series features sumptuous music, stunning Italian locations and some of the biggest names in opera as contributors.
The second episode focuses on Verdi, whose operas are central to Pappano's conducting repertoire and the backbone of the international opera scene. It shows how Verdi's music was influenced by composers such as Bellini and particularly Donizetti, whose gothic masterpiece Lucia di Lammermoor is explored with the help of soprano Diana Damrau.
Pappano looks at six of Verdi's most famous works - Nabucco, Rigoletto, Don Carlo, Otello, Falstaff and La Traviata, the last of which Pappano rehearses and conducts at the Royal Opera House with the starry cast of Renee Fleming, Joseph Calleja and Thomas Hampson.
Pappano travels to Le Roncole in northern Italy where Verdi was born amidst a turbulent political environment, and politics became a major influence on Verdi's operas in later life. He conducts Va Pensiero from Nabucco at a vast open-air concert in Naples, a chorus which was to become a powerful symbol of political unity for the Italian people.
SUN 00:20 Opera Italia (b00spgk8)
The Triumph of Puccini
Three-part series tracing the history of Italian opera presented by Antonio Pappano, conductor and music director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The series features sumptuous music, stunning Italian locations and some of the biggest names in opera as contributors.
The final episode is devoted to Puccini, the worthy successor to Verdi. Puccini's operas are cinematic in their scale with ravishing, passionate and clever music, as he took Italian opera into the 20th century.
Pappano looks at five of Puccini's most popular operas - La Boheme, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Gianni Schicchi and Turandot. He travels to Rome to meet stage director Franco Zeffirelli and talk about Puccini and Zeffirelli's famous production of Turandot.
Pappano also talks to one of the great Puccini interpreters, the soprano Renata Scotto, about the composer, Madame Butterfly and the role of Mimi in La Boheme. Also featured are soprano Angela Gheorghiu, tenors Jonas Kaufmann and Roberto Alagna and baritone Sir Thomas Allen.
SUN 01:20 David Stratton’s Stories of Australian Cinema (m000j45c)
Series 1
Episode 2
Much-loved film critic David Stratton tells the fascinating story of Australian cinema, focusing in on the films that capture this idiosyncratic nation with drama, emotion and humour.
David played a pivotal role supporting film-makers and helping them to find audiences both locally and abroad. He rose to fame co-hosting a movie review show with Margaret Pomeranz, which the nation religiously tuned in to for almost 30 years.
In this episode, David looks at how Australian cinema celebrates the endurance of outsiders, whether they are newcomers to a strange new land in films like They’re a Weird Mob and Wake in Fright, or locals out of step with the mainstream in Evil Angels, Muriel’s Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
The series takes us on a thrilling journey across Australian cinema's most moving moments and unforgettable scenes and into the heart of the stories portrayed on the big screen that helped shape a nation’s idea of itself.
SUN 02:20 BBC Young Dancer (m0013c98)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
MONDAY 18 APRIL 2022
MON 19:00 Snooker: World Championship (m0016l0z)
2022
Day 3: Evening Session
Coverage of the evening session of day three at the 2022 World Snooker Championship.
MON 21:00 Brian Cox's Adventures in Space and Time (m000wnk3)
Series 1
Aliens: Are We Alone?
Brian Cox looks at our attempts to answer one of the most profound questions we can ask – are we alone in the universe? With scientists sending space probes to the furthest reaches of our solar system and beyond, the scientific search for alien life has begun.
Inspired by a childhood love of science fiction, Brian still hopes to hear from ET. In this film, he explains why this search deserves to be taken seriously, and he explores the chances of it happening.
MON 22:00 Maxwell (b007h9ll)
David Suchet stars as the media tycoon in a dramatised account of how greed and ambition destroyed a man and led him to commit one of the world's biggest ever frauds.
As Maxwell's world starts to collapse, his obsession with power and his great rival Rupert Murdoch begin to unravel his life. Cracks appear in his multi-billion business empire, his marriage enters troubled waters, and he becomes infatuated with his PA.
With time running out he retreats to the heart of his web at the offices of the Daily Mirror and sets about saving his skin. Trapped and paranoid, his attempts to stem the tide of debts culminate in him stealing a billion pounds from his companies and their pension funds.
MON 23:30 A Day in the Life of Earth (m0001vjc)
If you think the Earth takes millions of years to change, it’s time to think again! Presented by Hannah Fry, this TV special reveals how much our planet can change in just 24 hours. A new era of science allows us to watch as the Earth moves, breathes, shrinks and grows right under our noses. The story is driven by scientists and explorers, and harnesses cutting-edge data, newly launched satellites and blue chip CGI to show us the true personality of the Earth… more dynamic than it’s ever been seen before. Every minute new land is born, every hour tonnes of rock arrive from space, before you go to sleep a cloud of dust from the Sahara will have fertilised the Amazon, and while all that was happening, the ground under your feet moved half a metre. As Hannah explains, Earth’s daily changes are all linked in surprising ways, and - more importantly – we would not be able to survive on the planet without them.
We start with the inner earth – the invisible but hugely dynamic system beneath our feet which constantly rebuilds the planet’s surface. On the island of Stromboli, we climb a volcano with geologist Professor Chris Jackson to see how much lava a single volcano can produce on a daily basis and how that lava builds new land. Chris also reveals what powers the inner earth – radioactive decay beneath of our feet, where heavy elements are constantly decaying into lighter ones – a process that produces the equivalent energy of 27,000 Hiroshima bombs every day. This energy is a crucial driver to plate tectonics and therefore volcanic activity. And the speed with which volcanic activity makes land is crucial - if it didn’t create land faster than erosion destroys it, we would have no land to live on and the world would be one giant ocean.
The story doesn’t stop with new land being made. It’s also constantly being moved. We reveal how the moon not only causes huge movements of water in the ocean – which we know as the tides - but also creates waves of solid rock on land, known as 'solid earth tides'; a ceaseless shape change which we never notice. When amateur divers Ramon and Veronica Llaneza found red dust in an underwater cave in the Bahamas, little did they know how far it had travelled to get there. Scientist Charlie Bristow has tracked the source of the dust to the Sahara and worked out how huge quantities of solid mud get airborne and carried across the Atlantic – half a million tonnes of it per day! Much of it ends up in the Amazon, where it helps fertilise the rainforest – the lungs of the planet. Meanwhile, in the polar regions, mountains are also being moved – by glaciers, which grind down rock 24-7 and eventually deposit it in the ocean, where it helps trigger another daily change – this time to life.
In the ocean, we follow the daily growth of phytoplankton – microscopic plant life fuelled by the nutrients put into the ocean by erosion. Five billion tonnes of it grow every day and, like all plants, absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. In fact, there is so much phytoplankton in the ocean that they are responsible for every second breath we take. The explosive growth of phytoplankton triggers another global change and the biggest mass movement of animal life known to science – the daily migration of the zooplankton, which rise up from the depths every night to feed on the plants. In Florida, we get underwater with a group of intrepid divers, who plunge into the pitch-black ocean for a chance to see this global phenomenon up close. We also look at how science is now able to track the growth of plants on land using satellites. If you could put all the growth in all the world’s forests into one imaginary tree, you would get a single tree three km tall in just one day. But with all this growth, there is an inevitable flipside - fire. The film goes behind the scenes with the US Forest Service as they tackle the biggest wildfire in California’s history. Every day an area of forest twice the size of the Grand Canyon National Park is burnt down.
Finally, Hannah Fry gets us to look outwards. The Earth is not a bubble – it’s part of a bigger cosmic system that every day messes with the composition of our planet. We lose atmospheric gases like hydrogen and helium at the rate of 1kg per second to space. And once they’re gone, they’re gone. In fact, when you look at the Northern Lights, you’re actually looking at helium being lost. But Earth does get something back from space. We join a group of amateur astronomers to watch the Geminid meteor shower in the deserts of California. This heavenly light display is actually revealing a process that goes on all day, every day. The Earth is constantly picking up space dust – an estimated 60 tonnes of it every 24 hours. But perhaps the biggest change of all is the one that few of us are even aware of. Our whole galaxy is moving through the cosmos at two million km per hour.
It really is a different planet every day. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be on it!
MON 00:30 Tomorrow's Worlds: The Unearthly History of Science Fiction (p026cd65)
Time
Dominic Sandbrook concludes his exploration of the most innovative and imaginative of all genres by considering science fiction's most alluring theme - time travel.
Having the power to change the past or see the future is a deep-seated human fantasy, and writers and film-makers have embraced its possibilities. From HG Wells's pioneering scientist in The Time Machine to Back to the Future's Marty McFly and Doctor Who's titular Time Lord, we've been presented with a host of colourful time travellers and their time machines. But is there always a price to be paid for meddling with the timeline?
Among the contributors are David Tennant, Karen Gillan and Steven Moffat (Doctor Who), actor Christopher Lloyd and screenwriter Bob Gale (Back to the Future), actor Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap) and novelist Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife).
MON 01:30 Science and Islam (b00gksx4)
The Language of Science
Physicist Jim Al-Khalili travels through Syria, Iran, Tunisia and Spain to tell the story of the great leap in scientific knowledge that took place in the Islamic world between the 8th and 14th centuries.
Its legacy is tangible, with terms like algebra, algorithm and alkali all being Arabic in origin and at the very heart of modern science - there would be no modern mathematics or physics without algebra, no computers without algorithms and no chemistry without alkalis.
For Baghdad-born Al-Khalili, this is also a personal journey, and on his travels he uncovers a diverse and outward-looking culture, fascinated by learning and obsessed with science. From the great mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, who did much to establish the mathematical tradition we now know as algebra, to Ibn Sina, a pioneer of early medicine whose Canon of Medicine was still in use as recently as the 19th century, Al-Khalili pieces together a remarkable story of the often-overlooked achievements of the early medieval Islamic scientists.
MON 02:30 Brian Cox's Adventures in Space and Time (m000wnk3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUESDAY 19 APRIL 2022
TUE 19:00 Snooker: World Championship (m0016l15)
2022
Day 4: Evening Session
Coverage of the evening session of day four at the 2022 World Snooker Championship.
TUE 21:00 Novels That Shaped Our World (m000b8mf)
Series 1
A Woman's Place
Ever since Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela, published in 1740, the novel has been a predominantly female literary form, offering far more opportunities to women writers than any other and consistently turning a powerful lens on the full range and depth of women's lives. Yet novels that explore women's stories, characters and emotions have often been attacked as frivolous – and sometimes by women themselves. But they are only frivolous to people for whom love, sex, friendship, family and one's own prospects in life are trivial matters. And there have been plenty of very serious female novelists too, from George Eliot and Middlemarch to Virginia Woolf and Orlando.
Women's rights have always been at the heart of the novel. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid’s Tale has long been a famous rallying cry for feminism. The battle for women's suffrage is the subject of the propagandist novel No Surrender, written by Constance Maud in 1911. Works like this were forgotten until imprints like Virago republished them in the 1970s. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is another case in point - now seen as an icon of African-American women's writing, its reprinting was promoted by one of the most significant novelists of the last few decades, Alice Walker, author of the lacerating The Color Purple. The episode brings the discussion right up to date with a novel from 2019 by a black British writer and about a black British woman, Candice Carty-Williams' Queenie.
TUE 22:00 Being Bridget Jones (m000qrx4)
Marking 25 years since the creation of the Bridget Jones character for a column in The Independent newspaper, author Helen Fielding opens up her personal archive for the very first time to tell the story of how Bridget Jones’s Diary came to be.
We meet Helen’s friends and family who inspired many of the characters and interview the stars of the hugely successful film adaptations, Renée Zellweger, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth.
Other contributors include Andrew Marr, Candice Carty-Williams, Jess Phillips, Richard Curtis, Cherie Blair and Germaine Greer.
TUE 23:00 imagine... (b093tw95)
Summer 2017
Margaret Atwood: You Have Been Warned!
For decades, Margaret Atwood has been universally acclaimed as Canada's greatest living writer. Fearlessly outspoken in life and in her work, Atwood has always been an unrelenting provocateur. At the age of 77, her renown grew still further with the explosive television adaptation of her best-known work The Handmaid's Tale, which was first published in 1985. It is a dystopian work of speculative fiction set in the future, which has drawn comparison with aspects of Donald Trump's leadership, in particular the charges of misogyny which have inflamed anti-Trump campaigners across America.
Alan Yentob meets Margaret Atwood in Toronto and discovers how a childhood spent between the Canadian wilderness and the city helped shape her vision of herself and the world, set alight her imagination and set her forth on a path to literary success.
TUE 00:00 Sylvia Plath – Inside the Bell Jar (b0bg2jgc)
Bringing to life that ‘queer sultry summer’ of 1953, Sylvia Plath: Inside The Bell Jar is the first film to unravel the story behind her seminal novel.
The book captures the struggles of an ambitious young woman’s attempts to deal with the constraints of 1950s America. As the bright lights of New York dim, her thoughts turn to depression and attempted suicide.
The film weaves the autobiographic narrative of the book with the testimony of her friends and daughter her Frieda Hughes, some speaking for the first time.
TUE 01:00 The Beauty of Books (b00ymh76)
Medieval Masterpieces
The medieval era was the heyday of illuminated manuscripts. In the 14th and 15th centuries, there was a flowering of religious texts set into beautifully decorated pages. Among these devotional books were psalters, or books of psalms. Hundreds of these were produced, but the Luttrell Psalter is remarkable for its whimsical, humorous and vivid pictures of rural life and a demonic world that is terrifying and grotesque.
This period also saw the development of literature in English. The great Geoffrey Chaucer, often called the father of English literature, took the bold decision to reject literary convention and write in English. His brilliant, bawdy satire the Canterbury Tales became a medieval bestseller and, as a result, when William Caxton set up his first printing press in London, he chose Chaucer's tales as his first major English publication.
These wonderful books contain clever, often mysterious references for their readers and are crucial milestones in the story of the book, charting the last phase of the manuscript and the arrival of the printed book.
TUE 01:30 Science and Islam (b00gq6h7)
The Empire of Reason
Physicist Jim Al-Khalili travels through Syria, Iran, Tunisia and Spain to tell the story of the great leap in scientific knowledge that took place in the Islamic world between the 8th and 14th centuries.
Al-Khalili travels to northern Syria to discover how, a thousand years ago, the great astronomer and mathematician Al-Biruni estimated the size of the earth to within a few hundred miles of the correct figure.
He discovers how medieval Islamic scholars helped turn the magical and occult practice of alchemy into modern chemistry.
In Cairo, he tells the story of the extraordinary physicist Ibn al-Haytham, who helped establish the modern science of optics and proved one of the most fundamental principles in physics - that light travels in straight lines.
Prof Al-Khalili argues that these scholars are among the first people to insist that all scientific theories are backed up by careful experimental observation, bringing a rigour to science that didn't really exist before.
TUE 02:30 Novels That Shaped Our World (m000b8mf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 20 APRIL 2022
WED 19:00 Snooker: World Championship (m0016l1c)
2022
Day 5: Evening Session
Coverage of the evening session of day five at the 2022 World Snooker Championship.
WED 21:00 Putin, Russia and the West (b01c12sd)
New Start
The final episode tells the inside story of two relationships - Barack Obama's campaign to win over Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, and Medvedev's own complex dealings with Vladimir Putin.
Obama became president determined to rid the world of nuclear weapons. To begin the process he needed Russian help. So he set out to reset relations with Russia. Ignoring Putin, whom many considered still in charge, he concentrated on Medvedev.
Top officials on both sides take viewers deep inside the negotiations. They describe how a phone call between the two young lawyer-presidents finally clinched the agreement - which cut their countries' nuclear arsenals in half.
But inside Russia, Medvedev had a harder time. He responded to the 2008 global financial crisis by setting out to turn Russia into a modern democratic economy. He made little progress. He told Obama that Russia's most famous dissident, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, would get a fair trial. It did not happen.
In the end, Medvedev stepped aside and nominated Putin to be their party's presidential candidate for the 2012 election. Top Kremlin insiders, including Medvedev and Putin, tell how the deal was done - and how it set in train a process that made Vladimir Putin look vulnerable for the first time.
WED 22:00 Murder in Soho: Who Killed Freddie Mills? (b0bcy56k)
Murder in Soho: Who Killed Freddie Mills? is a real-life murder mystery about the life and untimely death of a national boxing hero, who is often described as Britain’s first sporting celebrity.
Set in 1960s Soho, this film delves into the world of UK and US organised crime, with gangland figures such as the Krays, boxing, gambling, police corruption, and a string of brutal unsolved murders that would become synonymous with the name Freddie Mills.
With access to eight hours of previously unseen home movies, this is an intimate portrayal of a man who rose from the humble surroundings of the fairground boxing booth to become light-heavyweight champion of the world, and became a household name appearing in films and co-presenting the BBC music show Six-Five Special. But it all ended on the 25th July 1965, when he was found shot dead in the back seat of his car. 50 years after his death his family still challenge the coroner’s verdict of suicide. They have always maintained he was murdered.
High profile gangsters such as Eddie Richardson give first hand accounts of the criminal underworld that existed at the time, and ultimately a man comes forward who claims to have been involved in the murder of Freddie Mills. It’s a piece of testimony that could finally conclude a 50-year mystery for Freddie’s family; allowing a British boxing great to be remembered for the man he was, and his achievements in life, rather than for the single day of his death
WED 23:30 Ireland to Sydney by Any Means (b00dqdly)
Episode 3
Charley and the team are separated from Dubai by the Persian Gulf, where a scheduled container ship will depart for India in a matter of days. Despite encountering pirate-infested waters, they reach India, where the team head straight for the streets of Mumbai to soak up the colours, smells and flavours. Before them is a journey on a cramped sleeper train to reach India's capital, Delhi.
Disaster strikes as one of the team gets seriously injured and has to drop out, with an emotional goodbye and a return to London for medical attention.
One man down but determined the expedition will continue, the team reach Varanasi, the holy town on the banks of the sacred river Ganges. Charley watches a traditional Arti ceremony and reflects on how much he is drawn to the incredible and varied country, and how much he is looking forward to the other wonderful places that lie ahead.
WED 00:30 Ireland to Sydney by Any Means (b00dtx93)
Episode 4
Epic journey series, using as many forms of transport as possible.
After a spiritually enriching time in India it's time to head north towards Nepal. The next leg of the journey starts on tuk tuks, one of Boorman's favourite modes of transport. Charley and the team enjoy it so much that they decide to buy one.
Leaving the chaos of the streets, Charley boards a train at Varanasi and is met at Gorakhpur by a tremendous downpour of rain. The team have an easy border crossing and find themselves in the comparatively peaceful land of Nepal, where they take a tractor, a multicoloured local bus and a dugout canoe all the way to the Royal Chitwan National Park.
Charley bonds with an elephant that takes him through remote Nepali villages, before transferring to jeep and travelling over deep valleys and Indiana Jones-style suspension bridges.
Meanwhile in Kathmandu, the King is deposed, and the atmosphere in Nepal's capital is electric as it becomes a republic. Here the team seize the opportunity to go to Everest by helicopter on the 55th anniversary of a mountaineering conquest: the summit of the world's highest mountain.
Eventually making it into China, Charley and the team travel along the Xi Jiang River to Wuzhou on a cement barge. Now running behind schedule due to the swelling of the river, Charley hurries to Yangshuo to see the breathtaking scenery of limestone cliffs, and to ride over this remote and captivating part of the world in a hot air balloon.
WED 01:30 Science and Islam (b00gvg7w)
The Power of Doubt
Physicist Jim Al-Khalili tells the story of the great leap in scientific knowledge that took place in the Islamic world between the 8th and 14th centuries.
Al-Khalili turns detective, hunting for clues that show how the scientific revolution that took place in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe had its roots in the earlier world of medieval Islam. He travels across Iran, Syria and Egypt to discover the huge astronomical advances made by Islamic scholars through their obsession with accurate measurement and coherent and rigorous mathematics.
He then visits Italy to see how those Islamic ideas permeated into the west and ultimately helped shape the works of the great European astronomer Copernicus, and investigates why science in the Islamic world appeared to go into decline after the 16th and 17th centuries, only for it to re-emerge in the present day.
Al-Khalili ends his journey in the Royan Institute in the Iranian capital Tehran, looking at how science is now regarded in the Islamic world.
WED 02:30 Putin, Russia and the West (b01c12sd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 21 APRIL 2022
THU 19:00 Snooker: World Championship (m0016l18)
2022
Day 6: Evening Session
Coverage of the evening session of day six at the 2022 World Snooker Championship.
THU 21:00 The RKO Story: Tales From Hollywood (b00g882n)
Birth of a Titan
Ed Asner tells the story of RKO Pictures through the eyes of the people who worked there from its creation at the start of the talkies in the late 1920s.
THU 22:00 King Kong (b0074mrz)
Hollywood's most famous monster movie in which Kong, the giant gorilla, is taken from his prehistoric island home to be exhibited in the music halls of Manhattan. The brilliantly executed tale of beauty and the beast set new standards in film-making and provided some of cinema's most powerful and lasting images.
THU 23:35 The Thing from Another World (b0078gj8)
Scientists at a lonely Arctic outpost dig up an alien from the permafrost and face a desperate fight for their lives when it is accidentally thawed.
THU 01:00 Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema (b0bfp4h7)
Series 1
Horror
Mark Kermode continues his fresh and very personal look at the art of cinema by examining the techniques and conventions behind classic film genres, uncovering the ingredients that keep audiences coming back for more.
Mark turns to horror and shows how film-makers have devilishly deployed a range of cinematic tricks to exploit our deepest, darkest and most elemental fears. He explores the recurring elements of horror, including the journey, the jump scare, the scary place, the monster and the chase. He reveals how they have been refined and reinvented in films as diverse as the silent classic The Phantom of the Opera, low-budget cult shockers The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Evil Dead, and Oscar-winners The Silence of the Lambs and Get Out. Mark analyses the importance of archetypal figures such as the clown, the savant and the 'final girl'. And of course, he celebrates his beloved Exorcist films by examining two unforgettable but very different shock moments in The Exorcist and The Exorcist III.
Ultimately, Mark argues, horror is the most cinematic of genres, because no other kind of film deploys images and sound to such powerful and primal effect.
THU 02:00 The Beauty of Books (b00yvs8l)
Illustrated Wonderlands
The Victorians were masters of illustrated books, especially for children. Thanks to an emerging middle class readership, new printing technology and a sentimentalised regard for childhood, fairy tales and fantasy fiction containing words and pictures grew into an established genre.
First published in 1865, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was one of the most remarkable books of the period, a combination of the genius of Carroll's nonsense verse and prose and the meticulously detailed illustrations of John Tenniel. Creating a handshake on the page, they formed an inseparable bond that has since become a cultural phenomenon. But beyond Tenniel, Carroll's masterpiece has been illustrated hundreds of times by artists like Salvador Dali, Ralph Steadman and Mervyn Peake, all creating their own distinctive Wonderlands. Peake was also a talented writer, and his Gormenghast trilogy of 1946 is an illustrated series of fantasy novels that re-interpreted the genre in the 20th century.
Today, illustrated or 'picture' books are still thriving for the youngest readership. The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler reveals how the genius of the writer and illustrator partnership continues to enthral and enrich the story of the book.
THU 02:30 The RKO Story: Tales From Hollywood (b00g882n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 22 APRIL 2022
FRI 19:00 Snooker: World Championship (m0016l1f)
2022
Day 7: Evening Session
Coverage of the evening session of day seven at the 2022 World Snooker Championship.
FRI 21:00 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 22:30 Queen: The Legendary 1975 Concert (b00p4hgm)
On Christmas Eve 1975, Queen crowned a glorious year with a special concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon. The show on the final night of their triumphant UK tour was broadcast live on BBC TV and radio, and has become a legendary event in Queen's history.
Featuring stunning renditions of early hits Keep Yourself Alive, Liar and Now I'm Here alongside Brian May's epic guitar showcase Brighton Rock, a rip-roaring version of the then new Bohemian Rhapsody and the crowd-pleasing Rock 'n' Roll Medley, this hour-long concert shows Queen at an early peak and poised to conquer the world.
FRI 23:35 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 00:30 Sounds of the 70s 2 (b01glwkz)
Arthouse Glam - Get in the Swing
Performances from The Kinks, Roxy Music, Elton John, New York Dolls, Queen, Sparks, Rod Stewart and the rediscovered David Bowie performance of The Jean Genie from January 1973.
Welcome to gender-bending, boys getting in the swing and girls who would be boys and boys who would be girls in this mixed-up, shook-up 70s world.
FRI 01:00 Stewart Copeland's Adventures in Music (m000dt78)
Series 1
Episode 3
Stewart Copeland explores the transcendental powers of music and how certain sounds have the ability to move us, transport the mind and even help us escape this world - if only briefly.
As a child, Stewart’s path was determined when, despite being raised by strict atheists, he was deeply moved by the massed voices of the Wells Cathedral choir singing Jerusalem. Ever since, he has been fascinated by the ability of music to leave us feeling uplifted.
In this episode, Stewart travels to Morocco to discover the polyrhythms of Gnawa and back to Wells Cathedral to understand the mechanics of choral polyphony. He meets Kanye West collaborator Caroline Shaw to examine melody and the effect of the human voice, CeCe Winans to discuss the roots of gospel, takes a gong bath in New York, and visits minimalist master Steve Reich to unpack the trance-inducing powers of repetition.
FRI 02:00 Freddie Mercury: The Final Act (m00123q9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]