Saturday 24th November 2012
| Rolling Stones: Crossfire Hurricane (2/2) |
Crossfire Hurricane, directed by Brett Morgen, provides a remarkable new perspective on the Stones' unparalleled journey from blues-obsessed teenagers in the early 60s to rock royalty. It's all here in panoramic candour, from the Marquee Club to Hyde Park, from Altamont to 'Exile, from club gigs to stadium extravaganzas.
With never-before-seen footage and fresh insights from the band themselves, Crossfire Hurricane places the viewer on the frontline of the band's most legendary escapades.
Taking its title from a lyric in Jumping Jack Flash, Crossfire Hurricane gives the audience an intimate insight, for the first time, into exactly what it's like to be part of the Rolling Stones, as they overcame denunciation, drugs, dissensions and death to become the definitive survivors.
The odyssey includes film from the Stones' initial road trips and first controversies as they became the anti-Beatles, the group despised by authority because they connected and communicated with their own generation as no-one ever had. 'When we got together,' says Wyman, 'something magical happened, and no one could ever copy that'.
Riots and the chaos of early tours are graphically depicted, as is the birth of the Jagger-Richards songwriting partnership. The many dramas they encountered are also fully addressed, including the Redlands drug bust, the descent of Brian Jones into what Richards calls 'bye-bye land', and the terror and disillusionment of 1969's Altamont Festival.
The film illustrates the Stones' evolution from being, as Mick vividly describes it, 'the band everybody hated to the band everybody loves': through the hedonistic 1970s and Keith's turning-point bust in Canada, to the spectacular touring phenomenon we know today. Richards also reveals the song that he believes defines the 'essence' of his writing relationship with Jagger more than any other.
The film combines extensive historical footage, much of it widely unseen, with contemporary commentaries by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood and former Stones, Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor'.
| Keith Richards: a Culture Show Special |
To mark the publication of Keith Richards' autobiography, Life, this Culture Show special looks at the life of the man with five strings and nine lives. In a candid interview he chats to Andrew Graham-Dixon about his childhood in Dartford, his passion for music and the decade that catapulted the Rolling Stones from back-room blues boys to one of the greatest rock 'n' roll bands in the world.
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Sunday 25th November 2012
| How Britain Worked (6/6) |
Guy Martin discovers a world of hi-tech engineering, show-off architecture, intrepid plant-hunters and anxious city fathers as he explores Birmingham Botanical Garden's Victorian roots.
| Return to Forgotten Briatin (1/2) |
In the previous series of 'Forgotten Britain', the BBC's foreign correspondent Fergal Keane took a journey closer to home to see how some of Britain's hard pressed communities were managing at the turn of the millennium. In the first episode of this follow-up series, Fergal retraces his steps to find out what happened to the inspiring families he met then and how they are coping today.
| Give Us the Money |
Documentary taking an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at 30 years of Bob Geldof and Bono's campaign against poverty. Their work has made them icons of aid and even garnered them Nobel Peace Prize nominations, but what impact has it really had on Africa? Through archive footage and candid new interviews with key players including Geldof, Bono and Bill Gates, the film re-examines three decades of unprecedented campaigns and scrutinises the effectiveness of celebrity-led activism.
Nearly 30 years ago, two young pop singers set out to challenge the world. Their aim - to use their celebrity status to end poverty in Africa. After Bob Geldof instigated a chart-topping charity single and staged one of the biggest rock concerts ever seen, he and Bono joined forces and went on to build a multi-million dollar lobbying organisation. Along the way, they hi-jacked the Brits, enlisted IT billionaires, fashion models and academics, won over the wiliest of politicians, lobbied world leaders and put the politics of poverty firmly on the international agenda. They raised vast sums for charity and persuaded western powers to dramatically reduce third world debt.
But did they really help make poverty history in Africa? What impact has their work really had on economic growth and poverty reduction? And if they haven't made poverty history, has their campaign at least been responsible for a big step forward?
A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, the film screens as part of Why Poverty? - when the BBC and the OU, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty.
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Monday 26th November 2012
| Where Has Your Aid Money Gone? |
...Channel 4 Dispatches: David Cameron backs increasing British aid to Rwanda. Dispatches asks if this aid is truly helping Rwanda's poor, or helping to create Africa's next tyrant.
| Stephen Fry: Gadget Man (2/6) |
Stephen Fry takes a look at how gadgets can make shopping and cooking so much easier and more entertaining, before hosting a dinner party for friends including Derren Brown and Jo Brand.
| Stealing Africa |
Ruschlikon is a village in Switzerland with a very low tax rate and very wealthy residents. There is so much money in the public coffers that mayor can't spend it all, largely thanks to the contribution from one resident - Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of commodities giant Glencore. However, Glencore's copper mines in Zambia don't generate similar tax windfalls for Zambians. The country has the third largest copper reserves in the world, but 60 per cent of the population live on less than $1 a day and 80 per cent are unemployed. Christoffer Guldbrandsen investigates the dark heart of the tax system employed by multi-nationals and asks how much profit is fair.
A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, Stealing Africa screens as part of Why Poverty? - when the BBC, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty. The global cross-media event sees the same eight films screened in 180 countries to explore why, in the 21st Century, a billion people still live in poverty.
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Tuesday 27th November 2012
| Britain on Film (4/10) |
Throughout the 1960s, the Rank Organisation produced hundreds of short, quirky documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. Shot on high-quality colour film stock, they were screened in cinemas, but until now very little of the footage has been shown on television. This series draws on this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into a pivotal decade in modern British history. This episode examines the films that recorded developments in one of 1960s Britain's most dynamic, innovative and industries - the glamorous and fast-moving world of fashion.
| Inside the Body Beautiful - How Cosmetic Surgery Works |
Documentary looking at the physiological and psychological changes that happen to young people as they strive to alter their appearance. Using computer graphics we travel inside the body and explore the science behind the most popular beauty and cosmetic treatments, from a man having the latest hair transplant treatment to revealing what actually happens to our skin as people inject synthetic hormones to achieve the perfect tan. We meet beautician Lucy from Essex who, after losing weight in her teens, wants breasts enlarged to improve her figure, and young bride-to-be Kirsty, who wants to test out Botox before the big day.
Through the highs and lows, this is the inside story of how cosmetic surgery works.
| Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream |
740 Park Avenue - an exclusive apartment building in Manhattan - is currently home to more billionaires than any other building in the United States. Less than five miles to the north is another Park Avenue in the South Bronx, where almost 40 per cent live in poverty and life prospects are less promising for those stuck at the bottom of the American pile. As international attention focuses on the US elections, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney looks at inequality in the US through the prism of these two, near-adjacent places, to ask if America is still the land of opportunity.
"There's always been a gap between the wealthiest in our society and everyone else, but in the last 30 years something changed: that gap became the Grand Canyon," says Gibney. Through the story of the two Park Avenues, he argues that the extreme wealth of a few has been used to impose their ideas on the rest of America. By focusing on the residents of 740 Park, he asks questions about the influence of CEOs in Washington in return for tax policies that favour the ultra-rich. What chances do those at the bottom of the ladder have for upward mobility? Can someone who starts life on Park Avenue in the South Bronx end up living on Park Avenue in Manhattan?
Through archive and interviews with academics, political scientists, psychologists, former lobbyists and even a former doorman at 740 Park, Gibney's film is a polemical look at the socio-economic political landscape of contemporary USA.
A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, Park Avenue screens as part of Why Poverty? - when the BBC and the OU, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty.
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Wednesday 28th November 2012
| Poor Us: an Animated History of Poverty |
Do we know what poverty is? Throughout human existence, the poor have always been with us. Beginning with the Neolithic age, Ben Lewis's funny and sinister animated odyssey takes us through the changing image of poverty - helping us define what poverty looks like today and question whether it is inevitable.
A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, Poor Us screens as part of Why Poverty? - when the BBC, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty. The global cross-media event sees the same eight films screened in 180 countries to explore why, in the 21st Century, a billion people still live in poverty.
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Thursday 29th November 2012
| The Secret Life of Rubbish (1/2) |
With tales from old binmen and film archive that has never been broadcast before, this two-part series offers an original view of the history of modern Britain - from the back end where the rubbish comes out.
The first programme deals with the decades immediately after the Second World War. 90-year-old Ernie Sharp started on the bins when he was demobbed from the army in 1947, and household rubbish in those days was mostly ash raked out of the fire-grate. That's why men like Ernie were called 'dust'men.
But the rubbish soon changed. The Clean Air Act got rid of coal fires so there was less ash. Then supermarkets arrived, with displays of packaged goods. And all that packaging went in the bin.
In the 1960s consumerism emerged. Shopping for new things became a national enthusiasm. It gave people the sense that their lives were improving and kept the economy going. And as the binmen recall, the waste stream became a flood.
As the programme sifts through the rubbish of the mid-20th century, we discover how the Britain of Make Do and Mend became a consumer society.
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Friday 30th November 2012
| Attenborough: 60 Years in the Wild (3/3) |
Sir David Attenborough reflects on the dramatic impact that humankind has had on the natural world within his own lifetime. He tells the surprising and deeply personal story of the changes he has seen, of the pioneering conservationists with who he has worked - and of the global revolution in attitudes towards nature that has taken place within the last six decades.
In a journey that takes him from the London Zoo to the jungles of Borneo, Attenborough reveals what inspired him to become a conservationist. He remembers classic encounters with mountain gorillas, blue whales and the giant tortoise, Lonesome George. These are all characters that have helped to change public attitudes to the natural world.
| Legends: Dennis Wilson - the Real Beach Boy |
Dennis Wilson was the drummer in the Beach Boys. And he was the real Beach Boy. In a band of geeks who sang about surfing, cars and girls, Dennis was the only one who surfed, the one who drove hot rod cars in competition and the one who got all the girls.
He was married five times, shared a house with Charles Manson (with whom he wrote songs, including one recorded by the Beach Boys) but died, ironically by drowning, at the age of 39. He was also the first Beach Boy to release a solo album, the stunning Pacific Ocean Blue, which after years of being out of print and fetching hundreds on Ebay, was re-released in 2008 to widespread acclaim, being voted No 1 Reissue of the Year by Mojo and Uncut magazines.
This documentary tells the story of Dennis's life and music, with unseen archive footage and original interviews with Beach Boys Al Jardine and David Marks, his sons Michael and Carl and many friends and fellow musicians. These include Taylor Hawkins, drummer with the Foo Fighters who provided a vocal for the lost track on Pacific Ocean Blue, Holy Man, for which Dennis never laid down a vocal when he recorded the song in 1977.
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