Saturday 5th May 2012
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Sunday 6th May 2012
| Nuts in May |
A tale of camping holidays and all the hazards involved. Their Morris packed to the gills, the punctilious Keith and the more spontaneous Candice-Marie arrive at a Dorset campground where they pay 10 pounds in advance for ten nights.
It's peaceful - they visit Corfe Castle, eat vegetarian food and go in search of raw milk. Then a fellow with a loud radio pitches his tent near theirs. Keith is beside himself and it doesn't help when Candice-Marie decides to befriend the young man. Things get worse when a couple arrive on a motorcycle, make noisy love in their tent and then start an illegal campfire.
It's too much for Keith and he loses it. Will our middle-class couple find a bucolic corner or are they doomed to brawl with the noisy and unwashed?
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Monday 7th May 2012
| The Digital Human (2/7) |
Control is one of the big attractions of living in the digital world, we only post the best pictures of ourselves enjoying the best parts of our lives. But does that mean we start to treat our lives more like a brand, to be sold to our friends and protected from anything negative? Aleks Krotoski talks to Sherry Turkle director of MIT's Initiative on Technology and the Self to ask if this could cause us problems. She'll also find out what happens when you give up control of your online life or have it taken over.
| The King and the Playwright: a Jacobean History (3/3) |
The concluding part of Professor James Shapiro's history of Shakespeare in the reign of King James. Shakespeare's late plays, such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, are often seen as mellow swansongs. Professor Shapiro gives us a different Shakespeare - a playwright still experimenting and alert to the troubled Jacobean world around him. He closes the series by reflecting on the legacies of king and playwright.
| Britain Beware |
Adrian Edmondson delves into the archives of the Central Office of Information, the government department responsible for making public information films. To mark the closure of the COI, Ade takes viewers on a journey through the mini-movies and TV ads that for nearly 70 years warned the public about everything from road safety to nuclear fallout. The films include hidden treasures and nostalgic gems such as Jimmy Savile's Clunk Click Every Trip campaign, Tufty the Squirrel and Charley Says.
| Buffy the Vampire Slayer |
(1992) Kristy Swanson plays vampire slayer Buffy Summers in Fran Rubel Kuzui's horror/comedy film, which led to the acclaimed TV series. With Luke Perry and Rutger Hauer.
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Tuesday 8th May 2012
| Hurricane Rash |
Dr Kevin Fong looks at the unlikely birth of modern reconstructive surgery, developed in direct response to the great air battles of the Second World War, and the horrendous burns suffered by the pilots who survived. Plastic surgery has had a bad press of late, more associated with the vanity of Hollywood, but its true origins lie in a small unassuming hospital in Kent, with a surgeon called Archie McIndoe and the development of an aeroplane that would become one of the great heroes of the Battle of Britain: The Hawker Hurricane. The Hurricane was an awesome fighter, built for maximum efficiency when it came to shooting down enemy aircraft. What it was not built for was to protect the brave pilot flying in it, should it get hit. The result, for those who survived, were some horrific burns, (nicknamed Hurricane Rash) and terrible disfigurements. Kevin tells the story of Archie McIndoe, and his "guinea pigs", the pilots he operated on, who bravely endured months, if not years, of often experimental treatment that pushed the boundaries of the field, and whose legacy is still evident in the most cutting edge techniques of modern reconstructive surgery.
| The First LP in Ireland |
In 1947, the Irish Folklore Commission and the BBC established a scheme to seek out and record folk music and stories throughout Ireland. The project was the idea of Donegal-born BBC producer Brian George and it lasted until 1952.
Field recordings in Cork, Kerry, Donegal and Galway were made by singer, storyteller, piper and broadcaster Seamus Ennis along with Brian George and his colleague Maurice Brown, a features producer from the BBC. Recordings were simultaneously being made in Northern Ireland by Peter Kennedy and Sean O Baoill. In all 1500 performances were preserved on over seventy hours of tape.
In early 1951, American folklorist and musicologist Alan Lomax travelled to Ireland on a similar mission, to record '...authentic performers in the isolated places where songs are handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth' and which '...are threatened to be engulfed by the roar of our powerful society.'
Lomax is regarded as one of the great field collectors of the twentieth century: His recordings introduced the world to such talents as Jelly Roll Morton and Leadbelly. With Seamus Ennis as his guide, Lomax visited villages across Ireland, recording singers and musicians.
Lomax and Ennis pooled their unique archive - from their separate 1947 and 1951 field trips - to assemble the very first anthology of Irish traditional music ever to be compiled on an LP - what they described as '...the first systematic mapping of the folk or oral musical tradition.' Filled with accordions, fiddles, pianos, stories and songs, the album would become a template for future musicians, introducing generations to songs which would eventually become standards: I'll Go No More A Rovin', Whiskey In The Jar, She Moves Through The Fair.
| The Town Taking on China (1/2) |
Tony Caldeira owns two cushion factories: one in Kirkby, Merseyside, and one in China. However costs and wages have soared in China - so Tony is embarking on an ambitious experiment to bring jobs back to Britain.
The problem is that Kirkby is the fifth most deprived borough in the country, with a quarter of people claiming some kind of benefit and with unemployment standing at 70% higher than the national average.
Tony's first challenge is to find new staff who are willing to work in the physically demanding world of manufacturing. He must then train young people in the old skill of sewing, whilst also inspiring them to commit to the company despite the fact they are earning the minimum wage. To succeed, he will need all the help he can get from his trusted factory manager Malcolm, sewing floor supervisor Pam, and experienced machinist Joanne.
While they try to rebuild British manufacturing, the situation in China becomes even starker for Tony when he is held to ransom by a member of staff who wants a 50 percent pay rise.
Jaws
ITV 4, 9.00pm - 11.35pm
Thriller based on the novel by Peter Benchley about a coastal community plagued by a killer shark. With the summer tourist season at hand, the mayor is keen to keep a shark attack hushed up. But when more attacks occur, an expert claims that the attacks are the work of a giant great white. There is only one solution - to kill the monster fish before it can feed again.
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Wednesday 9th May 2012
| This World: Michael Portillo's Great Euro Crisis |
BBC 2, 9.00pm - 10.00pm
Self-confessed Eurosceptic Michael Portillo visits debt-stricken Greece. He believes that the euro crisis must have shaken the Greeks' faith in Europe's single currency and wonders if there'll be a desire to revert to the free-floating drachma. In Athens he meets everyone from a destitute young family to the former finance minister and the outgoing Prime Minister, and is surprised by some of their answers.
Meanwhile in Germany, Europe's economic powerhouse, Michael encounters the taxpayers who are paying most towards Greece's mammoth financial bailout while having to watch angry Athenians burning the German flag.
With tensions rising in the Eurozone, is this the moment it becomes more united, or will it be pulled apart?
| Parkinson: the Interviews |
Michael Parkinson looks back at some of his many interviews with the comic genius that was Peter Cook.
| Frost on Interviews |
Television interviews seem to have been around forever - but that's not the case. They evolved in confidence and diversity as television gradually came of age. So how did it all begin? With the help of some of its greatest exponents, Sir David Frost looks back over nearly sixty years of the television interview.
He looks at political interviews, from the earliest examples in the post-war period to the forensic questioning that we now take for granted, and celebrity interviews, from the birth of the chat show in the United States with Jack Paar and Johnny Carson to the emergence of our own peak time British performers like Sir Michael Parkinson and Sir David himself.
Melvyn Bragg, Joan Bakewell, Tony Benn, Clive Anderson, Ruby Wax, Andrew Neil, Stephen Fry, AA Gill, Alastair Campbell and Michael Parkinson all help trace the development of the television interview. What is its enduring appeal and where does the balance of power actually lie - with the interviewer or the interviewee?
| Sporting Heroes: After the Final Whistle |
In a special documentary, former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan looks at life after sport and the challenges competive athletes face once their career is over. Travelling the world, he meets some of the biggest names in sport and investigates the many different issues that top sports stars face when retirement finally beckons.
With contributions from tennis icon John McEnroe, Open golf winner Darren Clarke, and former world heavyweight champion and successful businessman George Foreman, this is a fascinating insight into how very different sports stars deal with the major issues of retirement. Some, like boxer Herol Graham, struggle to cope and contemplate suicide, while for others such as former England football captain Tony Adams, sports are like a drug they cannot give up. For top sportswomen there are even more difficult choices to make as Olympic star Gail Emms found out when she was faced with the decision of having children or continuing with her career. And some, like promising England rugby star Matt Hampson, do not have the choice as tragedy strikes.
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Thursday 10th May 2012
| The Library Returns |
The public outcry over the predicted closure of libraries masks a subtler story. Across Europe, the USA and Britain libraries are being re-invented. They are being given a much needed architectural facelift and a profound review of services in order to guarantee their survival into the 21st century.
Jonathan Glancey presents this programme which visits the great game-changing library in Seattle, Europe's 'most modern' library in Deft, a library in Stuttgart which is reviving a whole neighbourhood, Piers Gough's 'super library' for Canada Water in London's Docklands and, of course, the huge new library at the centre of Birmingham which will open next year as the largest public cultural space in Europe.
He considers what these libraries are doing to secure their place in the future - what they can offer in terms of inspiring architecture, engagement with the communities they serve and democratic access to the digital world.
| In Business: Bank to Basics |
Britain's big four banks are being challenged by newcomers. Peter Day asks what new arrivals on the high street have to do to prize customers away from their traditional loyalties.
The Government wants more competition in banking with the aim of getting a better deal for customers who have been complaining about the service they receive in record numbers. There are key developments taking shape but will they be enough to create bigger banks to compete with the big boys?
Well, Virgin Money has bought Northern Rock and Lloyds is currently negotiating to sell more than 630 branches, possibly to Co-Op Bank. Meanwhile, newer banking players like Handelsbanken and Metro are expanding, promising better local customer service and in some cases, that elusive thing - a bank manager. Big retail names like Tesco and Sainsbury's have banking licences and hope to grow the business from the financial products they currently offer. Shawcross Bank and Aldermore Bank aim to take small business customers away from the high street banks.
But there are big stumbling blocks to competition. The big four - Lloyds Banking Group, RBS/Natwest, Barclays and HSBC have an eye watering 77% market share of personal current accounts, and 85% of Small and Medium Enterprises current accounts.
There are other factors too which complicate the picture. While the technology may be cheaper to create a new banking platform, banks will shortly have to hold more ready capital to prevent any future financial crises.
So can the newcomers really make a dent in the big four's domination of UK banking?
| The Two Thousand Year Old Computer |
In 1901, a group of divers excavating an ancient Roman shipwreck near the island of Antikythera, off the southern coast of Greece, found a mysterious object - a lump of calcified stone that contained within it several gearwheels welded together after years under the sea. The 2,000-year-old object, no bigger than a modern laptop, is now regarded as the world's oldest computer, devised to predict solar eclipses and, according to recent findings, calculate the timing of the ancient Olympics. Following the efforts of an international team of scientists, the mysteries of the Antikythera Mechanism are uncovered, revealing surprising and awe-inspiring details of the object that continues to mystify.
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Friday 11th May 2012
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Peter Bogdanovich's epic portrait of one of America's great heartland rock 'n' roll bands.
Hailing from Gainesville, Florida, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers got together in the mid-70s, moved to California and released their self-titled debut album in 1976. The album was a hit in the UK where its concise, rock 'n' roll traditionalism sat well with the emerging punk and new wave scenes.
The film uses extensive interviews with the band and friends like Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks and Rick Rubin to chart their stubborn, independent-minded and often highly-successful journey towards the present day - breaking up occasionally, stopping off with the Travelling Wilburys, various Petty solo outings and periods backing the likes of Dylan, but fundamentally sticking together as one of America's greatest live and recording rock 'n' roll bands.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released Mojo, their first album together in eight years, in June 2010.
| Hellraiser |
(1987) An unfaithful wife encounters the zombie of her dead
lover, who's being chased by demons after he escaped from their sado-masochistic
Hell.
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