Sunday 5th May 2013
| Perspectives |
Hugh Laurie makes a musical pilgrimage across America to delve into the story of the country's blues music. When he was a boy, Hugh heard a recording of a concert featuring blues legend Professor Longhair playing on board the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. As a tribute, Hugh gigs his way across the USA before playing a concert in homage to his musical hero on the very same ship. On the way, he visits the studios of Ray Charles and plays the blues star's own piano. He also meets Mudd Morganfield, the son of Muddy Waters, and duets with Jools Holland.
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Tuesday 7th May 2013
| Keeping Britain Alive: the NHS in a Day |
This episode takes a look at the NHS outside of the hospital environment, and through a vast patchwork of experiences reveals the health system's role in British lives from cradle to grave.
Featuring a Yorkshire District Nurse who spends her day changing dressings and tubes for elderly patients, a maverick GP in Everton who takes in addicts and abusive patients who have been rejected by other surgeries, and a pair of West Midlands paramedics who compare their nightshift to that of a mini-cab service. In London, the air ambulance crew rush to the scene of two serious accidents, whilst in Birmingham, a medical student makes his 16th sperm donation.
| Mary Queen of the High Street |
With over 100 shops closing a week, Mary Portas wants to revive Britain's failing high streets. She starts at east London's Roman Road, where she battles to get the stallholders on side.
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Wednesday 8th May 2013
Bankers
BBC 2, 9.00pm - 10.00pm
The dramatic inside story of the scandal that ripped through the banking industry in 2012 and took down a banking legend, Bob Diamond. In the first of a new three-part series, bank bosses, regulators and politicians give frank first-hand accounts of how the balance of power has finally started to shift away from the masters of the universe. Ironically, this game-changing crisis erupted over the widespread rigging of an obscure rate-setting mechanism, Libor, rather than over the tumult of the financial crash. Some say it took this latest scandal to expose a profit-at-all-costs cynicism that they believe has corrupted the heart of our banking system; all agree things need to change. Former Barclays chairman Marcus Agius, RBS boss Sir Philip Hampton, deputy governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey and Jean-Claude Trichet examine the difficult new dilemmas about what we want and need from our bankers, and whether we can trust them again.
| Great Artists In Their Own Words |
In the first episode of the series, this programme unlocks the BBC archives to tell the story of the birth of modern art, in the words of the artists who created a cultural revolution - from the startling innovations of Picasso to the explosion of colour in the paintings of Matisse, to LS Lowry's industrial cityscapes and the often shocking work of surrealists like Max Ernst, Magritte and Dali.
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| Bradford: City of Dreams |
Bradford was once one of the richest cities in Britain and it has always been a magnet for economic migrants. From the Irish rural poor who came to work in the mills in the 1800s, via German Jewish merchants who traded in cloth at the turn of the 19th century and on through the waves of Asian immigration in the second half of the 20th Century, people have come to Bradford to make their way in the world.
Since the 1960s, the mills, factories and exchanges have nearly all closed, and the once grand city is a shadow of its former self. But rising from the ashes of this industrial collapse there is a new breed of Bradfordians who, with a mix of Yorkshire grit, 21st-century nous and plenty of chutzpah are managing to fulfill their dreams.
32-year-old Nav blings up some of the hottest super-cars in the world - he started with a Vauxhall Nova in his parents back-yard, and now he's got Ferraris and Lamborghinis lining up for his genius styling makeovers. His mind is firmly fixed on expansion and he's developing his own brand of bodykits in his multi-racial workshop and he reckons these kits will take him global, but even in the white heat of creativity he still makes sure he takes a cake back home for Mother's Day.
Graham's a builder by trade and a communicator by nature - a few words of Urdu have helped him become the builder of choice for Bradford's Asian community and they don't seem to mind too much when he's called away to his second job as a grave-digger with a specialism in Muslim burials. Finally, Rajen represents a whole new world of international small business. With an Indian father and an English Mum, he's got an idea that makes the most of his multi-national upbringing, leaving his Mum in Bradford with his sisters, while he spends six months with his wife in her home town in Eastern India exploring demand there for UK goods, everything from high street clothing to Bradford's staple food.
Nav, Graham and Raj are three very different characters who are all showing that despite the difficulties of life in post-industrial Bradford, it is still a place full of opportunities.
| New Model Army: Tonight |
The United Kingdom has the world's fourth largest military expenditure, yet only the 22nd largest population. With this in mind, the Government is planning to cut the defence budget by restructuring the armed forces. As part of this restructure, 20,000 troops are set to lose their jobs and the Territorial Army is being asked to play an increasing role in frontline duties. Reporter Fiona Foster examines the impact this will have, and asks whether part-time TA soldiers can fill the gap left by full-time regulars.
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Friday 10th May 2013
Pride and Prejudice - Having a Ball
BBC 2, 9.00pm - 10.30pm
Documentary celebrating the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice, revealing the hidden world behind one of the greatest love stories of all time by restaging a regency ball at Chawton House, the grand estate of Jane Austen's brother. Amanda Vickery and Alastair Sooke lead a team of world class experts as they reconstruct the ball in loving detail, from music and dancing, to food and fashion.
Jane Austen loved to dance and balls were hugely popular in early 19th century England. Crucially, a ball is also where Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy meet and begin their courtship. However very little is known about what they were actually like. What sort of music would they have danced to? How difficult were the steps? What were the clothes like to wear? And what did the food taste like?
This film uses music from the Austen family archives, as well as dances and dishes mentioned in her novels and letters to recreate the experience of attending an early 19th century country ball - the sort of event that Austen had in mind when she wrote some of the most famous and powerful scenes in English literature.
Unreported World
Channel 4, 7.30pm - 7.55pm
Marcel Theroux meets the students in Hong Kong aiming for success in one of the most competitive exam environments in the world, and meets the millionaire tutor seen as a key to success.
| Jazz 625: The Dave Brubeck Quartet |
Slim Gaillard introduces the legendary Dave Brubeck Quartet in a restored and re-edited 1964 programme, featuring Paul Desmond on saxophone, Gene Wright on bass, Joe Morello on drums and Brubeck on piano. Songs include Take 5, the first jazz record to sell over one million copies.
| Queens of Jazz: the joy and the pain of the Jazz Divas |
Queens of Jazz is a celebration of some of the greatest female jazz singers of the 20th century. It takes an unflinching and revealing look at what it actually took to be a jazz diva during a turbulent time in America's social history - a time when battle lines were being constantly drawn around issues of race, gender and popular culture.
This is a documentary about how these women triumphed - always at some personal cost - to become some of the greatest artists of the 20th century; women who chose singing above life itself because singing was their life.
| Jazz Divas Gold |
BBC Four explores the archives for the sultry sounds and looks of 'Jazz Divas Gold'! Featured Jazz legends include Ella Fitzgerald, Marion Montgomery, Cleo Laine, Blossom Dearie, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone, Peggy Lee, Betty Carter, Amy Winehouse, Eartha Kitt and many more who can be seen from 1965 to 2008 on BBC treasures such as Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, Show of the Week, Not Only...But Also, Birdland, Parkinson, Later..with Jools Holland, Morecambe and Wise and more...so let's hear it for the ladies!
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