Saturday 26th January 2013
| War Horse: the Real Story |
The extraordinary story of the million British horses that served in World War I, told using rare archive footage and testimony, and the latest historical research.
| Howard Goodall's Story of Music (1/6) |
Today music is available everywhere, at the press of a button, but a thousand years ago it was an eery whisper in a desert of silence. However music has always been a crucial part of human existence. Archaeological evidence shows us that music - although we have absolutely no idea what it sounded like - was just as important a component of life in the Upper Paleolithic Age as it is today.
Howard Goodall charts the development of the oldest music that has come down to us from the ancient world intact, the 'Gregorian' chant. It started with a handful of monks singing the same tune in unison, without rhythm, without harmony. Over several centuries, with developments coming at a snail's pace, medieval musicians painstakingly put together the basics of what we now call harmony and added rhythm. These are the building blocks of the music the whole planet enjoys today.
The arrival of a workable form of musical notation, around 1000 AD, gave music another shot in the arm. Now harmony could become ever more sophisticated. Not one, or two, but many voices. In Europe, at this point in history, music was something rarely heard outside church. Then, thanks in part to the development of more sophisticated musical instruments, folk music went from strength to strength. By 1600, secular music rivaled sacred music as the dominant form.
By the time Monteverdi wrote the first successful opera, in 1607, most of the kit of musical parts we still have today had been developed and honed - a process that took a thousand years. In Monteverdi's hands, using all the techniques then developed, music could express complex, conflicting, and even combustible political emotions.
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Sunday 27th January 2013
| Prisoner Number A26188: Henia Bryer |
The German invasion of Poland in 1939 marked the beginning of the Second World War and the escalation of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. It also was the beginning of one of the war's truly inspiring and remarkable stories.
Prisoner A26188 tells the story of a young Polish girl Henia. Born into a middle class Jewish family, she lost her father, brother and sister during the German occupation, survived four concentration camps, and went on to bear witness to the creation of Israel in 1948.
Now in her eighties, Henia's harrowing personal testimony starts with her family's removal from their home in Radom, Poland, to the ghetto, then Plaszow concentration camp, made famous by Schindler's list, onto Majdanek then Auschwitz and finally Bergen-Belsen. Henia describes with calm and dignity the terrors of the camps, the cruelty of the SS, the Death March and how, through a combination of her own resourcefulness and luck, she survived. In this extraordinary testament Henia explains, how after being reunited with her mother and brother, she makes her way to Palestine, sees in the birth of Israel, falls in love with a young South African and moves to Africa to start a new life.
Filmed by her niece, this is her story of survival, and a legacy to her family and other survivors of genocide.
| Fleetwood Mac - Don't Stop |
Fleetwood Mac are one of the biggest-selling bands of all time and still on the road. Their story, told in their own words, is an epic tale of love and confrontation, of success and loss.
Few bands have undergone such radical musical and personal change. The band evolved from the 60s British blues boom to perfect a US West Coast sound that saw them sell 40 million copies of the album Rumours.
However, behind the scenes relationships were turbulent. The band went through multiple line-ups with six different lead guitarists. While working on Rumours, the two couples at the heart of the band separated, yet this heartache inspired the perfect pop record.
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Monday 28th January 2013
| The Great Disability Scam? - Panorama |
Only half of all people with a disability are in work. Panorama investigates if one of the government's most ambitious welfare reforms, costing billions of pounds, can solve the problem of disability unemployment. Reporter Sam Poling reveals the private companies who are getting rich from the new reforms despite only being able to get a small fraction of disabled people back to work, and speaks to the charities who feel the most vulnerable in our society are being failed.
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| The Mary Berry Story (1/2) |
Mary Berry charts her life from her childhood in Bath during WW2, to London in the 1960s when she got her first big break. It was an ideal time for an ambitious young woman to spread her ideas and methods to a hungry population. In touching trips down memory lane, Mary reveals how a stern father, contracting polio and an inspirational teacher all influenced a career which has spanned over 50 years.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013
| Make Me a Muslim |
Growing numbers of young British women are converting to Islam. Shanna Bukhari, a 26-year-old Muslim from Manchester, sets out to find out why girls are giving up partying, drinking and wearing whatever they want for a religion some people associate with the oppression of women.
This warm documentary follows the highs and lows of five girls as they embrace their new faith. From adapting to a religion that allows a man to marry up to four wives to the acceptance of friends and family, it isn't always easy.
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Thursday 31st January 2013
| The Art of Sequencing |
Guy Garvey from Elbow considers the challenge of turning a collection of songs into a coherent single piece of art, and how this has changed in the days of downloading single tracks.
Reading the chapters of a novel in the wrong order would be a strange thing to do, but is the running order of an album still important now that you can easily create your own playlists?
Pink Floyd felt so strongly that classic albums such as The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here should be heard as complete works that they took their record company to court in an attempt to retain their artistic integrity. Nick Mason, Pink Floyd's drummer talks about the court case and sequencing the Floyd's albums.
As singer with Elbow and producer of I am Kloot, Guy Garvey has strong opinions about the integrity of an album's sequencing. He talks to Pete Jobson from I am Kloot about their Mercury Prize-nominated album Sky at Night, and to Peter Hammill about sequencing on his solo albums and with his prog rock band Van der Graaf Generator.
And the broadcaster and classical music critic Stephen Johnson provides examples of well-known song cycles by composers such as Schubert and Richard Strauss which weren't in fact written as complete sequences of songs at all but compiled by a publisher after their death.
With contributions from David Brewis of Field Music, DJ Colleen Murphy and music critic and broadcaster Pete Paphides.
| World's Toughtest Prison |
Documentary revealing the technological leaps forward that have enabled North Branch Correctional Institution in Maryland to become one of the most secure prisons in the world, holding over 1,400 of America's most dangerous prisoners.
The prison owes much of its innovation to the historic engineering breakthroughs at four earlier prisons - including the Tower of London and Alcatraz. Now, with its impenetrable cells able to withstand bomb blasts and technology ensuring dangerous inmates are kept safely away from each other, North Branch may be the toughest yet.
| The Genius of Invention (2/4) |
We take our ability to travel quickly and safely across the globe for granted. This episode reveals the fascinating chain of events that made such everyday marvels possible, telling the story of the handful of extraordinary inventors and inventions who helped build the modern world by making the miracle of powered transport mundane.
From the Rolls Royce aero-engine factory in Derby, Michael Mosley, Professor Mark Miodownik and Dr Cassie Newland tell the amazing story of three more of the greatest and most transformative inventions of all time, the steam locomotive, the internal combustion engine and the jet engine. Our experts explain how these inventions came about by sparks of inventive genius and steady incremental improvements hammered out in workshops. They separate myth from reality in the lives of the great inventors and celebrate some of the most remarkable stories in British history.
| Climbing Everest with a Mountain on my Back: the Sherpa's Story |
Every year, over a thousand climbers try to reach the summit of Mount Everest, with the annual record for successful attempts currently standing at 633. But of that number, nearly half were Sherpas - the mountain's unsung heroes. Yet the Sherpa community has remained secretive about their nation, culture and experiences living in the shadow of the world's highest mountain. Now, for the first time, they open the door into their world.
Without the expertise of the Sherpas, only the hardiest and most skilful climbers would succeed. Every day they risk their lives for the safety of others, yet they seek neither glory nor reward, preferring to stay in the background. Following the stories of four such Sherpas - Phurba, Ngima, Ngima Tenji and Gelu - this film reveals the reality of their daily lives, not just up the mountain, but with their families after they return home.
Secrets of the Pickpockets |
Pickpocketing in London is on the rise. This film tells the story of the unseen war on a crime that has 1700 victims a day.
| This Week |
A political review of the week presented by Andrew Neil, with Michael
Portillo and guests.
Friday 1st February 2013
| First-Time Farmers (4/5) |
This episode meets three young people who don't have farming backgrounds but are determined to get into the business: petite, feminine Bunny, shepherd Henry, and tractor enthusiast Will.
| Love Me Do: the Beatles '62 |
On October 5th 1962 the Beatles released their first single, Love Me Do. It was a moment that changed music history and popular culture forever. It was also an extraordinary year in social and cultural history, not just for Liverpool but for the world, with the Cuban missile crisis, John Glenn in space and beer at a shilling a pint.
Stuart Maconie explores how the Beatles changed from leather and slicked back hair to suits and Beatle mops, and how their fashion set the pace for the sixties to follow. Pop artist Sir Peter Blake, Bob Harris and former Beatles drummer Pete Best join friends to reflect on how the Beatles evolved into John, Paul, George and Ringo - the most famous band in the world.
| Ravi Shankar: Between Two Worlds |
Filmed over two years in India and the USA, Mark Kidel's award-winning documentary brings together archive footage spanning seven decades of Ravi Shankar's performing life, and provides a definitive account of the late sitar maestro's unique musical career.
| A Concert for Bangladesh Revisited |
Documentary which tells the story of the first major charity rock concert, the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh organised by former Beatle George Harrison at Madison Square Garden in New York. In response to the political crisis in Bangladesh and attempting to raise money, medicine and supplies for the refugees, Harrison responded to Ravi Shankar's plea and came out of semi-retirement to organise and play this show. He also drew contribitions from a number of his famous friends who had also finished the 60s shellshocked and exhausted, notably Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton. Harrison, Dylan and Clapton hadn't played in public for several years.
