SATURDAY 02 NOVEMBER 2024
SAT 19:00 The Flying Gardener (m0024rq1)
Series 1 Shorts
Scotland
Chris Beardshaw heads for west Scotland to help an oyster fisherman deal with an overgrown garden and finds out why Scots design the best shady gardens.
SAT 19:20 All Creatures Great and Small (p031d2n2)
Series 1
Out of Practice
The practice in Darrowby goes from strength to strength - unlike James's private life. Tristan decides to remedy matters and arranges a double blind date.
SAT 20:10 All Creatures Great and Small (p031d2n5)
Series 1
Nothing like Experience
James makes a date with Helen, without Tristan's help. The practice loses a customer, with Tristan's help. Siegfried stops smoking, which doesn't help anyone.
SAT 21:00 Those Who Kill (m0023z7n)
Justice
Episode 3
Louise and Frederik visit Kim’s mother in the search for Kim, and a clue leads them to Sweden, where the manhunt extends. Meanwhile, Kim hides with his stepdaughter in a cabin in the woods. Louise and Frederik team up with Gunnar and the Swedish police to find him, only to discover yet another devastating crime.
In Danish with English subtitles.
SAT 21:45 Those Who Kill (m0023z7r)
Justice
Episode 4
Louise and Frederik interrogate Kim. He confesses the old double murder but refuses to plead guilty to the murders of Patrick and Pernille. Louise manages to dismantle his alibi, but she has also seen something new in Kim, which forces her to come up with a new theory.
In Danish with English subtitles.
SAT 22:30 Parkinson (m001vn1f)
Michael Palin, Kate Adie and Ricky Gervais
Michael Parkinson with guests Michael Palin, Kate Adie and Ricky Gervais.
SAT 23:30 Porridge (p00bxn9j)
Series 2
Happy Release
A spell in the prison hospital is not as restful as Fletcher hoped, after he finds himself sharing a ward with Blanco.
SAT 00:00 Hancock's Half Hour (p032khyr)
The Lawyer: The Crown v James S
Hancock is a lawyer and defends Sid, who is accused of theft from a jewellery shop - and faces a further 57 charges to boot.
SAT 00:30 All Creatures Great and Small (p031d2n2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:20 today]
SAT 01:20 All Creatures Great and Small (p031d2n5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:10 today]
SAT 02:10 The Flying Gardener (m0024rq1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
SAT 02:30 Nature and Us: A History through Art (m0010zff)
Series 1
Episode 3
In the concluding episode of the series, James explores how the art of the last hundred years reflects how we swapped nature for progress in the first half of the 20th century before rediscovering its beauty in the decades following the Second World War, and how today’s artists are re-imagining our future relationship with nature.
The film begins in the first decades of the 20th century, an era of human self-confidence, intent on conquering nature. In the art of Piet Mondrian, James explores how an artist who began life as a landscape painter gradually leaves nature behind, tidying up the messy reality of nature into abstract lines. We meet Chinese artist Yang Yongliang on the streets of New York, whose sprawling digital landscapes ask questions about our drive for rapid urbanisation.
James continues to explore this story through the images of one of the best photographers of the last century – and one of its most brilliant women - Margaret Bourke-White. In 1930, she was the first professional western photographer to be allowed into the Soviet Union, where she captured the rapid transformation of the country from being largely rural into a modern, industrial state. James moves on to explore how the destructive power of the atomic age both terrified and inspired artists in the 1940s and 1950s, from painters like Bittinger to the world of sci-fi films.
We then see the arrival of a new kind of art – land art. In the late 60s and 70s, a growing number of artists left the city and started working not only in nature but with it. We meet two contemporary land artists based in New Zealand: Philippa Jones and Martin Hill, who use natural materials to create sculptures in the landscapes of New Zealand’s South Island. And finally, we explore how artist collective Random International are using technology to explore our future relationship with nature – through a series of mesmerising art works.
James finishes the episode and the series asking questions of the interviewees who have appeared across the series. How do they see our future relationship with nature?
He concludes that on the long journey we humans have been on since our beginnings, artists have played a vital role not only in reflecting but also shaping our attitudes to nature. They’ve helped us understand its intricacy, appreciate its beauty, and now – when the entire planet seems under threat – they can help us forge a new relationship with it.
SUNDAY 03 NOVEMBER 2024
SUN 19:00 The Bridges That Built London with Dan Cruickshank (b01jv5nr)
Dan Cruickshank explores the mysteries and secrets of the bridges that have made London what it is. He uncovers stories of Bronze-Age relics emerging from the Vauxhall shore, of why London Bridge was falling down, of midnight corpses splashing beneath Waterloo Bridge, and above all, of the sublime ambition of London's bridge builders themselves.
SUN 20:00 Dance Passion Swansea (m0024rqh)
Dancers of all kinds take over Swansea’s streets, landmarks, parks and beaches to showcase the city, explore what home means and celebrate the life-enhancing joy of dance. The performances feature solos, duets and ensembles across a variety of dance styles, including ballet, Latin, contemporary, ballroom, breaking, traditional clog and Welsh folk. Locations range from Mumbles Pier and skateboard park to Swansea Bay and the dunes, beaches and bays of the Gower peninsula.
SUN 21:00 Men at the Barre - Inside the Royal Ballet (m000jjjq)
What is it like to be a male ballet dancer in the modern world? Is there still a stigma for boys who enter what is commonly seen as a female domain? Award-winning film-maker Richard Macer hopes to find out as he gets invited to film with a golden generation of talented young male dancers at the Royal Ballet.
An American TV host got into hot water for ridiculing Prince George for taking ballet at school. But why is that men are still an easy target if they want to pull on a pair of tights instead of kicking a ball around a pitch?
Macer learns that, in the past, the man’s role was just to lift the ballerina into the air. But things have changed. Top male dancers have fan bases that rival those enjoyed by the best ballerinas. And choreography is starting to reflect masculinity in different ways. It is becoming more fluid, mirroring our changing perception of what it is to be man outside in the wider world.
Russian Vadim Muntagirov is considered by many to be the best dancer in the world today. He tends to open most classical ballets (Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake) at the Royal Opera house alongside his world-renowned dance partner, Marianela Nuñez. Matthew Ball, from Liverpool, is a younger principal who has a super fan attend his every performance and even give him notes on how many mistakes he made during the show!
Steven McRae has the biggest following on Instagram but tends to post more these days about his rehabilitation routine than his dancing, since he is coming back from two serious injuries. And then there is Ed Watson who has been at the top of his profession for many years but now, at the age of 42, is contemplating retirement.
We might assume ballet is a genteel, middle-class art form but some of the dancers at the Opera House dismantle this stereotype with personal stories that some viewers might finding surprising, such as that of Marcelino Sambé and Joseph Sissens, who both overcame considerable hardship before arriving in Covent Garden.
Nearly all the dancers Macer talks to share one main inspiration - Rudolf Nureyev. It was not just the Russian’s ability on the stage that struck such a chord with them, but also the aura he created, which transcended ballet and came to represent a new kind of machismo.
What we learn is that male ballet is incredibly competitive, just as it is for the women, with dancers pushing themselves towards a goal of perfection that, rather like utopia, remains always just out of reach. But for the men, there is often an added obstacle on their journey to success, the notion that society still sees ballet primarily as a female activity. So, for our golden generation, they have had to swim against the tide in a way their sisters have not. Perhaps, as Macer discovers, that is why these young men describe their occupation as a ‘calling’.
SUN 22:00 Peter Kosminsky Remembers... Wolf Hall (m001gc6z)
Wolf Hall, one of the most critically acclaimed television dramas of recent years, was based on the first two of the late Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell novels and brought together a stellar cast that included Mark Rylance as Cromwell, Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn and Damien Lewis as King Henry VIII.
Director Peter Kosminsky looks back on the making of the drama, with anecdotes and insights into his working with the cast, the joy of collaborating with Mantel herself, and his determination to honour her legacy with the adaptation of the final chapter in Cromwell’s story, The Mirror and the Light.
SUN 22:15 Wolf Hall (p02gfy74)
Series 1
Three Card Trick
Thomas Cromwell's patron Cardinal Wolsey is dismissed as lord chancellor and forced to flee his palace at York Place. The old noble families of England, jealous of their own right to advise the king, have long waited for this moment. His hopes of returning to the king's favour lie with the ever-loyal Thomas Cromwell.
Eight years ago, when Cromwell started working for Wolsey, the cardinal made an enemy of Thomas Boleyn by chastising him for his daughter Anne's far-from-virtuous reputation. As rumours circulated in court that Anne was secretly betrothed to Harry Percy, the cardinal insisted that no such match would be allowed.
Still lacking a male heir, the king is desperate for an annulment from his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, claiming she was not a virgin on their wedding day. To Cromwell's dismay, the cardinal's efforts to persuade the pope to grant the annulment are fruitless. An alliance between the pope and Katherine's nephew, the holy Roman emperor, diminishes the cardinal's position even further.
As Henry grows impatient, the pressure increases on the cardinal. To add to this, rumours reach the cardinal that the king's new mistress is Anne Boleyn, who has sworn vengeance on him over Harry Percy.
Cromwell visits Anne, urging her that only the cardinal can secure what she wants, but Anne is unmoved. The duke of Norfolk, nervous of the cardinal's continuing proximity to the king, insists that Cromwell tell Wolsey to travel north to his archdiocese in York. A desperate Cromwell finally meets directly with Henry, but the king is nothing if not ambiguous. Will he recall the cardinal or turn on him?
SUN 23:20 A Life on Screen (m000crhm)
Hugh Grant
Hugh Grant tells the story behind his success, after being honoured with the Best Actor award at the Baftas for his performance in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
With an outstanding career in film and television, this special delves into the archives to showcase some of Hugh’s incredible work and includes an in-depth interview with the man himself. From his early days starting out in comedy troupe The Jockeys of Norfolk to his breakthrough role as Charles in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Hugh Grant has become one of Britain’s best-loved film stars.
Since then, Hugh Grant has gone from strength to strength with box office hits including Bridget Jones’s Diary, Love Actually, Notting Hill, About a Boy, Two Weeks Notice, Paddington 2 and Florence Foster Jenkins. Most recently, he has turned his talents to television in the critically acclaimed BBC drama A Very English Scandal, playing notorious politician Jeremy Thorpe.
The film also includes interviews from those who have helped shape Hugh’s glittering career, such as Andie MacDowell, Richard Curtis, Sandra Bullock, Colin Firth and Nicholas Hoult.
SUN 00:20 The Bridges That Built London with Dan Cruickshank (b01jv5nr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
SUN 01:20 Men at the Barre - Inside the Royal Ballet (m000jjjq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
SUN 02:20 A Life on Screen (m000crhm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:20 today]
MONDAY 04 NOVEMBER 2024
MON 19:00 Great Australian Railway Journeys (m000h5g6)
Series 1 (30-Minute Versions)
Port Augusta to Darwin – Part 1
Michael Portillo ventures down under to ride one of the world’s greatest rail journeys aboard the legendary Ghan Railway.
Michael's 1913 Bradshaw’s Guide tells him 'a transcontinental railway is being constructed' and he traces its route from the southern harbour of Port Augusta to the port of Darwin on the north coast. Along the way, Michael uncovers the history of the ambitious project, which stretches nearly 2,000 miles across Australia’s red centre, and learns why it took nearly a century to complete.
Steaming through the Flinders Ranges, Michael travels on the Pichi Richi heritage railway - the only remaining part of the 'Old Ghan' line in operation.
In the outback city of Alice Springs, Michael meets the indigenous Arrente people of the region around their campfire, where he hears dreaming stories and shares their bushtucker. He learns first-hand how their grandparents were mistreated at the time of his guidebook, when state policy required that children be taken from their families to be assimilated into white society.
MON 19:30 Canal Boat Diaries (m000q9v8)
Series 2
Ellesmere Port to Audlem
Life on board a narrowboat with Robbie Cumming. Robbie battles his way through blanket weed on the Shropshire Union Canal and discovers industrial secrets in Audlem, Cheshire.
MON 20:00 Landscape and Memory (p00b68x2)
Arcadia
Last in the series examining the relationship between culture and the natural environment. Historian Simon Schama looks at paintings by Poussin and the writings of Horace, Virgil, Rousseau and Thoreau as he investigates different interpretations of the theme of Arcadia.
MON 20:40 City Scapes (m0024rwp)
New York
Post-war architectural innovations in the Big Apple.
MON 21:00 Call My Bluff (m0024rwr)
Robert Robinson referees as Frank Muir, Hannah Gordon and Barry Norman face Patrick Campbell, Glenys Roberts and Paul Daneman in a duel of words and wit.
MON 21:30 Face the Music (m0024rwt)
Joseph Cooper invites listeners to match their musical wits against Joyce Grenfell, Robin Ray and David Attenborough. Guest musician Andreej Panufnik.
MON 22:00 Horizon (m000hjpw)
2020
Hubble: The Wonders of Space Revealed
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of its launch, this film tells the remarkable story of how Hubble revealed the awe and wonder of our universe and how a team of daring astronauts risked their lives to keep it working.
MON 23:00 Earth from Space (p072n8m0)
Series 1
Changing Planet
Cameras in space tell stories of life on our planet from a brand new perspective. At a time when the Earth’s surface is changing faster than ever in human history, watch cities grow, forest disappear and glaciers melt. In the ever-growing grey of cities one man is feeding thousands of parakeets; in Sumatra a female orang-utan and her daughter face life in a forest under threat; while in Tanzania local people use satellites to replant a forest, securing the future for a family of chimpanzees. This is our home as we’ve never seen it before.
MON 00:00 Forest, Field and Sky: Art out of Nature (b079ckkf)
Dr James Fox takes a journey through six different landscapes across Britain, meeting artists whose work explores our relationship to the natural world.
From Andy Goldsworthy's beautiful stone sculptures to James Turrell's extraordinary sky spaces, this is a film about art made out of nature itself, featuring spectacular images of landscape and art.
James travels from the furthest reaches of the Scottish coast and the farmlands of Cumbria to the woods of north Wales. In each location, he marvels at how artists' interactions with the landscape have created a very different kind of modern art, and how they make us look again at the world around us.
MON 01:00 Great Australian Railway Journeys (m000h5g6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
MON 01:30 Canal Boat Diaries (m000q9v8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
MON 02:00 Earth from Space (p072n8m0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 today]
MON 03:00 Horizon (m000hjpw)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
TUESDAY 05 NOVEMBER 2024
TUE 19:00 Great Australian Railway Journeys (m000kxvt)
Series 1 (30-Minute Versions)
Port Augusta to Darwin – Part 2
Michael Portillo continues to trace the route of one of the world’s greatest rail journeys – the legendary Ghan Railway. Before boarding the luxurious, modern transcontinental at Alice Springs, Michael meets orphaned joeys Tilly and Max at Brolga’s Kangaroo Sanctuary, where he helps at feeding time.
Close by, at Bond Springs Cattle Station, Michael discovers the rags to riches story of the early 20th century Cattle King, Sidney Kidman, and meets the family who today run one of his former ranches.
Fellow passengers aboard the Ghan take Michael by surprise on his journey between Alice Springs and Katherine, where he alights to explore the traditional lands of aboriginal groups along the exquisite Katherine Gorge.
Arriving in Darwin, capital of the tropical Northern Territory, on the eve of ANZAC day, Michael joins Australians to mark the anniversary of the First World War battle that defined their nation
TUE 19:30 Canal Boat Diaries (m000q9z0)
Series 2
Market Drayton to Stourport-on-Severn
Life on England’s waterways with Robbie Cumming. Robbie gets stuck in the mud in Woodseaves Cutting and explores the charming canal-side village of Kinver in Staffordshire.
TUE 20:00 Porridge (b00787kv)
Series 2
The Harder They Fall
Classic prison-set sitcom. Godber takes up boxing and enters the prison championships, but someone wants him to come a cropper.
TUE 20:30 As Time Goes By (p045tlcg)
Series 1
You Must Remember This
Jean is baffled when her daughter goes out with one of her clients. When the two meet, they realise they were once lovers, separated during the Korean War.
TUE 21:00 She-Wolves: England's Early Queens (b01dpqtx)
Jane, Mary and Elizabeth
In the medieval and Tudor world there was no question in people's minds about the order of God's creation - men ruled and women didn't. A king was a warrior who literally fought to win power then battled to keep it. Yet despite everything that stood in their way, a handful of extraordinary women did attempt to rule medieval and Tudor England. In this series, historian Dr Helen Castor explores seven queens who challenged male power, the fierce reactions they provoked and whether the term 'she wolves' was deserved.
Helen looks at what happened when England was faced not just with inadequate kings, but no kings at all. In 1553, for the first time in English history all the contenders for the crown were female. In the lives of these three Tudor queens - Jane, Mary and Elizabeth - she explores how each woman struggled in turn with wearing a crown that was made for a male head. Elizabeth I seemed to show that not only could a woman rule, but could do so gloriously. But at what cost?
TUE 22:00 Storyville (m0024s0l)
Hollywoodgate
With unprecedented access to one of the most secretive cabals in the world, the Taliban, this extraordinary film begins on the day after the last US soldier left Afghanistan in 2021 and follows a group of Talib leaders in their first year back in power.
Director Ibrahim Nash’at was allowed, under strict, hostile guard, to follow and film two of the Taliban men now operating out of Kabul airbase: an ambitious lieutenant and his superior, the head of Afghanistan’s Taliban-controlled air force.
Just as the gaze of the world is withdrawn from Afghanistan, Nash’at's camera follows the unearthing of a treasure trove of weapons, helicopters and planes, hastily sabotaged by US troops and part of an estimated $7bn (£5.5bn) worth of military equipment that American troops left behind. Over the next 12 months, Nash’at watches as the new head of the Afghan air force oversees the repair and repainting of the fighter jets and Black Hawk helicopters, in preparation for a military parade.
In making his film, director Ibrahim Nash’at took extraordinary risks. The Taliban fighters view every journalist as a foreign spy and accepted his presence under duress. 'That little devil is filming again,' one mutters when the camera comes too close. Another says that if he misbehaves, he will promptly be taken outside and killed.
TUE 23:30 The Fall of the Berlin Wall with John Simpson (m000b1h2)
It’s said that journalists write the first draft of history. To mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor and longest-serving correspondent, goes back to his reports on what he believes is the most important story he ever covered – the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Back in 1989, John thought this event would change the world for the better, forever. But history has not turned out quite the way he expected. Russia is yet again an enemy of the West, and the Cold War battle that built the Berlin Wall has been replaced with other destabilising global power struggles - even more dangerous and much harder to understand.
Three decades on, John wonders if he was wrong to have been so optimistic. Using the anniversary as an opportunity to re-examine how he told the story, John watches the BBC’s extensive archive and talks with historians and other experts to try and understand just how accurate his reporting was.
At the heart of the documentary is an intense and personal interview with John. He begins by describing how he grew up in the shadow of the Cold War battle between the capitalist West and the communist East, and how he - like everyone else - believed that this global stand-off would continue for many more decades, ending sooner or later in nuclear war.
On 9 November 1989, John, like the rest of the world, in shock at reports that the Berlin Wall’s checkpoints had been opened up, rushed to Berlin to cover the incredible story. With great emotion, John recalls his happiness as he reported from in front of the Wall as Berlin’s people tore it down, until his broadcast was cut off midway by technical failure – giving him by far the most humiliating moment of his long career.
After the technical meltdown, John describes how he walked into the crowd feeling utterly depressed. But, surrounded by the thousands of people who had streamed through the checkpoints from East Berlin, untouched by the once trigger-happy border guards and greeted with delight by West Berliners, he could barely believe his own eyes and found himself overwhelmed with joy.
So, why has the legacy of the Wall not turned out the way John hoped and expected? He examines why he did not predict that the pace of change across Europe would lead to the terrible war in Yugoslavia, nor that Russia, with Vladimir Putin – a former KGB agent – as its president, would find a new guise in which to become a bitter enemy of the West.
John also reflects on the terrifying uncertainty of global politics today, which has left him with a certain nostalgia for the decades of the Cold War – a period that was certainly frightening, but arguably less so than the uncertainty and complexity of global politics that we live with today.
TUE 00:30 Great Australian Railway Journeys (m000kxvt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
TUE 01:00 Canal Boat Diaries (m000q9z0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
TUE 01:30 She-Wolves: England's Early Queens (b01dpqtx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUE 02:30 The Fall of the Berlin Wall with John Simpson (m000b1h2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:30 today]
WEDNESDAY 06 NOVEMBER 2024
WED 19:00 Great Australian Railway Journeys (m000l455)
Series 1 (30-Minute Versions)
Adelaide to Perth – Part 1
Michael Portillo embarks on an epic rail adventure aboard the transcontinental Indian Pacific Railway, from the southern port city of Adelaide, south Australia, 1,700 miles deep into the desert, to the gold rush town of Kalgoorlie, and finishes in Perth, Western Australia.
First, Michael explores McLaren Vale, where an enterprising early 19th-century Briton with a murky past began to grow vines. Michael enjoys the fruits of his labours and hears his story from his great great great granddaughter.
Boarding the mighty Indian Pacific, Michael embraces the luxury of a previous age as he travels across Australia’s notoriously remote and inhospitable Nullarbor Plain. He discovers the 100-year-old history behind the ambitious line and the tremendous feat of engineering it took to deliver it. In the ghost town of Cook, Michael helps to top up the train’s water and is rewarded with dinner under the stars at Rawlinna. He then pays a flying visit to the doctor to hear how patients in remote Western Australia are cared for.
WED 19:30 Canal Boat Diaries (m000q9sv)
Series 2
Stourport Basins to Kingswood Junction
The real side of boat life with Robbie Cumming. Robbie navigates the mighty River Severn and takes an unexpected bath as he takes a tumble at the Tardebigge lock flight in Worcestershire.
WED 20:00 The Secret Genius of Plants (m0024rts)
Series 1
Super Senses
We have long known that plants can move, but recent studies have found that they can also smell, touch and taste, and have other surprising senses, allowing us to look at them with fresh eyes.
WED 20:50 The Ancient Briton (m0024rtx)
Ted Green talks about a 600-year-old oak tree in Windsor Great Park, Berkshire, which is older than the castle and weighs 50 tons.
WED 21:00 Thomas Hardy's Dorset (m0024rtz)
A documentary about Thomas Hardy's Dorset with Sir Michael Hordern.
WED 21:30 Thomas Hardy: Homeground (m0024rv1)
Most of Thomas Hardy 's personal papers were destroyed at his request when he died, but one seminal notebook survived the flames. Its pages offer unique insight into Hardy's methods of research, showing how the writer took snippets from local newspapers and, using the immense power of his imagination, transformed them into some of the greatest literature ever written in the English language.
WED 22:00 Tess of the D'Urbervilles (b00drmr4)
Episode 3
Third in the four-part drama series based on the novel by Thomas Hardy.
Tess agrees to marry Angel, to his great joy. When he confesses to a dishonourable event in his own past, Tess feels that she can at last tell him about her relationship with Alec D'Urberville and its consequences.
WED 23:00 Tess of the D'Urbervilles (b00dw3wg)
Episode 4
In the last in the four-part drama series based on the novel by Thomas Hardy, Angel has gone to Brazil, leaving Tess to endure a harsh winter on a swede farm.
While being relentlessly pursued by Alec, she has written to Angel, pleading with him to return before it is too late. Unfortunately, Angel has been struck down by a dangerous fever, and when Tess' sister arrives with bad news about their father it sparks a chain of misfortunes.
Will Tess ever see Angel again and find happiness at last?
WED 00:00 Novels That Shaped Our World (m000bhgt)
Series 1
The Empire Writes Back
Robinson Crusoe, the hero of the first ever novel published in English, in 1719, was a slave trader. Right from its inception, as this programme investigates, the English novel was closely bound up with the dynamics of colonialism and marched along, in lock step, to the British Empire’s rise, decline and fall. Slavery, which predated the empire, but was an inescapable part of it, is the subject of two famous American novels more than a century apart - Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The legacy of slavery is also at the heart of one of the most famous novels of all, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and its 'prequel', written a century later - Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea.
The British Empire was often taken as a given – even God-given - and widely celebrated. In the novels of some writers, though, it was questioned more deeply – such as Rudyard Kipling’s famous espionage yarn Kim. Fifty years later, a very different type of spy, James Bond, fought to keep the empire going when it had in truth already gone. By then a new voice had emerged - that of writers from the newly independent former British colonies, like Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe. At the same time, immigrants from the Caribbean were coming to the UK in search of a warm welcome and a better life. Their mixed experiences began to be told in the Trinidadian Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners, published in 1956. The twin evils of racism and slavery come full circle in recent works like the former Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman’s series Noughts and Crosses and the 2016 Man Booker prize winner The Sellout, a savage comedy by Paul Beatty – in which a present-day African-American Los Angeleno keeps a slave.
WED 01:00 Great Australian Railway Journeys (m000l455)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
WED 01:30 Canal Boat Diaries (m000q9sv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
WED 02:00 Thomas Hardy's Dorset (m0024rtz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WED 02:30 Thomas Hardy: Homeground (m0024rv1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:30 today]
WED 03:00 The Secret Genius of Plants (m0024rts)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THURSDAY 07 NOVEMBER 2024
THU 19:00 Great Australian Railway Journeys (m000ky1j)
Series 1 (30-Minute Versions)
Sydney to Broken Hill – Part 1
Michael Portillo embarks on a new rail journey down under, exploring New South Wales with his 1913 Bradshaw’s Guide. Beginning in the waterside metropolis of Sydney, the NSW capital, Michael investigates the origins of the city as a penal colony, visiting the Hyde Park Barracks, where many of the first convicts were housed.
Taking his courage in both hands, Michael climbs to the top of what Sydneysiders call the Coathanger to admire the harbour view and tours the city’s iconic Opera House. And at Bondi Beach, Michael joins volunteers from the Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club, founded at the time of his guidebook, for rescue practice.
THU 19:30 Canal Boat Diaries (m000q9sg)
Series 2
Stratford-upon-Avon to Birmingham
The reality of life afloat with Robbie Cumming. On the last leg of his journey across England, Robbie crosses an epic aqueduct near Stratford-upon-Avon and gets stuck in a lock in central Birmingham.
THU 20:00 How the Celts Saved Britain (b00ktrby)
Salvation
Provocative two-part documentary in which Dan Snow blows the lid on the traditional Anglo-centric view of history and reveals how the Irish saved Britain from cultural oblivion during the Dark Ages.
He follows in the footsteps of Ireland's earliest missionaries as they venture through treacherous barbarian territory to bring literacy and technology to the future nations of Scotland and England.
THU 21:00 Tamara Drewe (b01399lz)
Tamara Drewe returns to the sleepy Dorset village where she grew up to sell her mother's house. Once the big-nosed girl next door, she has had a nose job and is a successful journalist in London. Her old flame Andy is still working for philandering novelist Nicholas Hardiment and his long-suffering wife and, when Tamara begins a relationship with rock drummer Ben Sergeant, there begins a three-way contest for her affections, made more complicated by the dreams of 15-year-old Jody, who wants to grow up and get away from the village just like Tamara.
THU 22:45 Five to Eleven (m0024s0j)
Michael Hordern Reads Thomas Hardy
Michael Hordern reads two poems by Thomas Hardy.
THU 22:50 Birth of the British Novel (b00ydj1p)
Author Henry Hitchings explores the lives and works of Britain's radical and pioneering 18th-century novelists who, in just 80 years, established all the literary genres we recognise today. It was a golden age of creativity led by Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Fanny Burney and William Godwin, amongst others. Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy are novels that still sparkle with audacity and innovation.
On his journey through 18th-century fiction, Hitchings reveals how the novel was more than mere entertainment, it was also a subversive hand grenade that would change British society for the better. He travels from the homes of Britain's great and good to its lowliest prisons, meeting contemporary writers like Martin Amis, Will Self, Tom McCarthy and Jenny Uglow on the way.
Although 18th-century novels are woefully neglected today compared to those of the following two centuries, Hitchings shows how the best of them can offer as much pleasure to the reader as any modern classic.
THU 23:50 Forest, Field and Sky: Art out of Nature (b079ckkf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
00:00 on Monday]
THU 00:50 Thailand: Earth's Tropical Paradise (b08bg31f)
The Mysterious North
Northern Thailand is dominated by mountains and cloaked in forest. It hides ancient creatures and surprising partnerships. To survive here, both the wildlife and people rely on maintaining the natural harmony of the mysterious north.
THU 01:50 Great Australian Railway Journeys (m000ky1j)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
THU 02:20 Canal Boat Diaries (m000q9sg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 02:50 How the Celts Saved Britain (b00ktrby)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
FRIDAY 08 NOVEMBER 2024
FRI 19:00 Top of the Pops (m0024s0b)
Beertje Van Beers presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 11 October 1996 and featuring Manic Street Preachers, Healy & Amos, The Beautiful South, Damage, Cast, Madonna, Babybird, Donna Lewis, Spice Girls and The Chemical Brothers.
FRI 19:35 Top of the Pops (m0024s0d)
Nigel Kennedy presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 18 October 1996 and featuring The Boo Radleys, Montell Jordan, Mark Morrison, Celine Dion, Bally Sagoo, John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John, Blackstreet, The Lightning Seeds, Sneaker Pimps and Boyzone.
FRI 20:05 Top of the Pops (b0b61x50)
Peter Powell and Steve Wright present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 7 November 1985 and featuring A-ha, The Far Corporation, Level 42, The Simon May Orchestra, Eurythmics & Aretha Franklin, Talking Heads, UB40, Jennifer Rush and Paul Hardcastle.
FRI 20:35 Top of the Pops (m00116fn)
Mark Franklin and Elayne Smith present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 7 November 1991 and featuring The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, Crowded House, K-Klass, Belinda Carlisle, INXS, Control, Neil Sedaka and Vic Reeves & The Wonder Stuff.
FRI 21:05 A Night of Wonder (m0014rw8)
A studio concert featuring one of the enduring stars of popular music, Stevie Wonder. The show, filmed in 1995, features many of his greatest hits.
FRI 22:10 Randy Crawford Live at Drury Lane 1982 (m0024xvm)
The international singing star's highly successful concert at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
FRI 23:10 Marvin Gaye: Live at Montreux (m001gqgr)
Captured during his live appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in July 1980, this highly energetic concert reinforces Marvin Gaye as the undisputed prince of Motown.
He performs many of his timeless classics, including Let’s Get It On, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, What’s Going On and I Heard It Through the Grapevine, resulting in thundering appreciation and applause from his audience. One of the most gifted talents to come up through the ranks of the Motown label, Marvin Gaye paved the way for the unrelenting progression of popular black tracks.
FRI 00:50 Top of the Pops (m0024s0b)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
FRI 01:25 Top of the Pops (m0024s0d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:35 today]
FRI 01:55 Top of the Pops (b0b61x50)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:05 today]
FRI 02:25 Top of the Pops (m00116fn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:35 today]
FRI 02:55 A Night of Wonder (m0014rw8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:05 today]