Saturday 9th March 2013
| Your Paintings: a Culture Show Special |
For years, thousands of paintings owned by the British public have been hidden away and inaccessible - until now. Thanks to the work of the Your Paintings project, over 200,000 works in our national collections have been painstakingly uncovered, photographed and put online - some for the very first time - allowing art experts and amateur-sleuths alike to make connections and discoveries that wouldn't have been possible before.
Alastair Sooke teams up with art detective Dr Bendor Grosvenor to unearth some hidden gems and find out what our paintings say about us.
| The Queen's Hidden Cousins |
The sad but true story of Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon, the Queen's cousins, who were born with learning disabilities and spent most of their lives all but forgotten in an institution.
| Blondie: One Way or Another |
Documentary about the Debbie Harry-fronted New York band Blondie, who crossed pop with punk, reggae and rap and had no 1's in all styles, from their Bowery beginnings at CBGBs in 1974 to their controversial induction into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. With exclusive backstage and performance footage from their 2006 UK tour, plus in-depth interviews with current and ex-band members and friends Iggy Pop, Shirley Manson, Tommy Ramone, and Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads.
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Sunday 10th March 2013
| Toughtest Place to Be a… Taxi Driver |
The award-winning series returns, with London cabbie Mason McQueen heading for Mumbai to test his skills on some of the busiest and most chaotic streets in the world. He's swapping his high-tech air-conditioned black cab for the boiling heat of a Mumbai taxi. His host is Pradeep Sharma, who lives with his extended family in a tiny two bedroom house and earns less than ten pounds a day for his long and stressful shift. As Mason takes his life in his hands to learn the Knowledge Mumbai style, he also begins to understand the plight of the millions of migrant workers who flood into India's cities looking for work. They often encounter poverty, discrimination and hostility. Inspired by their sheer determination, Mason's final challenge is to go solo in an Indian taxi, picking up passengers, finding his way around and earning his crust in the madness of the Mumbai rush hour. It's like 'Mad Max meets the Kumars' as Mason puts it.
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Monday 11th March 2013
| Britain on Film |
This episode examines Look at Life's surprisingly entertaining films on the British economy, at a time when industry faced ever-increasing competition from abroad.
| Oscar Pistorius: What Really Happened? |
Police say the death of Reeva Steenkamp was premeditated murder. The accused, her boyfriend Oscar Pistorius, says it was an innocent accident. A documentary team has been in Pretoria, South Africa, digging deeper into a death that shocked the world.
Presented by Rick Edwards, who covered Pistorius's gold-medal winning, world record-breaking achievements at the London 2012 Paralympics, the programme features interviews with friends of both the victim and the accused. Aged 26, Oscar Pistorius is the poster boy of the Paralympics movement - his prosthetic lower legs have given him the nickname Blade Runner. So fast and powerful, he became the first the first double leg amputee to participate in the Olympics, competing in the 400m and 4x400m relay.
But since that glorious summer, reports have emerged of a different side of Oscar Pistorius - involved in brawls and late night fracas. Observers note that when setting bail, the judge made it conditional that until he returns to court in June, Pistorius must not consume alcohol and will be randomly tested to ensure he complies.
Featuring special 3-D graphics, sworn testimony and exclusive interviews, the film attempts to give the most complete picture yet of what may have happened in Oscar Pistorius's apartment in the early hours of February 14th.
| Mark Lawson Talks to Michael Palin |
Mark Lawson talks to Python and globetrotting national treasure Michael Palin about his childhood and early career days. He recalls some of the highs and lows of the famous ensemble and regales Mark with a German rendition of the Lumberjack song. Palin has been a successful writer, comedian and broadcaster for nearly fifty years. After his early global success with Monty Python, he reinvented himself as our favourite Englishman abroad with his prolific travelogues, as well as an author of novels and diaries.
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Tuesday 12th March 2013
| The Railway: Keeping Britain on Track (5/6) |
With 20,000 miles of track and seven million neighbours, the railway has to manage its local communities as best it can. Millions of pounds are spent on the track teams who deal with fly tipping and picking up dog mess thrown on the track. The MerseyRail revenue inspectors must try to clamp down on ticket evasion while having to deal with drunk passengers.
In the Welsh Valleys, a line that was closed in the 1960s has been reopened, helping to regenerate the area. Slovakian Lukas finds that his new job as a train guard not only helps him to become a fully-fledged Welshman but also, he admits, a bit of a trainspotter. But not all communities welcome the railway - when Network Rail wants to close a manned level crossing box in a picturesque village and move it up the line for safety reasons, they have to contend with the locals intent on keeping 'their' level crossing-keeper.
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Wednesday 13th March 2013
| Fabrice Muamba: Sports Life Stories |
In this edition, Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba talks about how he was at the centre of one of the most extraordinary sports stories of the year. He describes how he felt that day last March when he suffered a heart attack on the pitch during a live televised FA Cup match. He also talks about his early life as a young Congolese boy coming to England at the age of 11 speaking no English, and about his subsequent successful professional career. With contributions from Jermaine Defoe, Owen Coyle and Patrick Vieira.
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Thursday 14th March 2013
| Britain's Secret Shoppers (5/6) |
Justin shows a couple that brilliant travel deals can still be had in high street travel agents. And he turns secret shopper in a Lancashire pet store that's going to the dogs.
| Horizon: The Creative Brain - How Insight Works |
It is a feeling we all know - the moment when a light goes on in your head. In a sudden flash of inspiration, a new idea is born.
Today, scientists are using some unusual techniques to try to work out how these moments of creativity - whether big, small or life-changing - come about. They have devised a series of puzzles and brainteasers to draw out our creative behaviour, while the very latest neuroimaging technology means researchers can actually peer inside our brains and witness the creative spark as it happens. What they are discovering could have the power to make every one of us more creative
| How TV Ruined Your Life |
Comedy series in which Charlie Brooker uses a mix of sketches and jaw-dropping archive footage to explore the gulf between real life and television.
From hysterical public information films to grisly crime dramas, terror spills out of almost every channel. As Charlie explores TV's approach to fear, you won't know whether to laugh or scream. Warning: contains traces of Michael Buerk and a semi-naked lady.
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Friday 15th March 2013
| Graham Parker: Don't Ask Me Questions |
Before there was punk, before there was new wave and before there was Elvis Costello, there was Graham Parker and his incendiary band the Rumour, rooted in traditional r 'n' b and rock 'n' roll forms but with a vitriolic lyrical edge that demanded to be heard.
Forming the Rumour in 1975, Parker came from Camberley where, amongst many other things, he'd been a petrol pump attendant. The Rumour included many of the cream of the pub rock scene including guitarists Brinsley Schwarz and Martin Belmont, formerly of Ducks DeLuxe. Deemed too edgy for the mid 1970s music scene and too traditional for the ensuing punk wave that they helped spark, they were a band born out of time. After five years of international critical acclaim but moderate sales, the band broke up.
In the intervening years Parker transformed as an artist into a kind of troubadour based in upstate New York, playing to his base of cult fans and having the occasional brush with success. The other members lived their lives in quiet contentment, but always wondering how their lives may have unfolded if they had shared the success of artists who were inspired by them and eventually eclipsed them.
In the summer of 2011, on a whim, they reunited to record an album of new Graham Parker songs. In the same summer, as fate would have it, long-time Graham Parker and the Rumour fan, director Judd Apatow cast the band to play themselves in his film This is Forty. The reunion and high level of exposure caused the band, now all in their sixties, to assess their lives, the notion of success and the meaning of true happiness.
This film, ten years in the making, documents these events and offers a heartfelt look at the lives of all the members focusing on the elusive recluse lead singer and songwriter Graham Parker. Contributions come from the Rumour, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Lowe and, of course, Parker himself.
| Oil City Confidential |
Director Julien Temple's film celebrates Canvey Island's Dr Feelgood, the Essex R 'n' B band that exploded out of the UK in the prog era of the early Seventies, delivering shows and albums that helped pave the way for pub rock and punk.
Temple examines Canvey Island culture as a 'Thames delta' for British rhythm and blues, with a central performance from the Feelgood's guitarist and songwriter Wilko Johnson. A British original, his dynamic stage presence and relationship with lead singer Lee Brilleaux drove the band through their early performances, characterising their three albums between 1975 and 1976, Down by the Jetty, Malpractice and the number one live album, Stupidity.
Wilko left the band in 1977, bassist John B Sparks and drummer The Big Figure both left in 1982, and Lee Brilleaux died in 1994. This is an imaginative, filmic and moving study of the place, times and characters that created the heyday of a seminal British band, and the personal forces that pulled them apart.
