SEARCH THE DATABASE

Restrict search to: Film TV Drama Documentary Music Animation Comedy Sport

 839 results:

121	The Man Who Shot Tutankhamun (2017) #987 DOCUMENTARY Main 1 hour. BBC. Margaret Mountford travels to Egypt's Valley of the Kings to discover the story of an unsung hero of British photography - Harry Burton, the man whose images of the Tutankhamun excavation created a global sensation in the 1920s. As she explores the spectacular locations where Burton worked, including Tutankhamun's tomb, she investigates how Burton's photographs inspired a craze for Egyptian designs and made the archaeologist Howard Carter an international celebrity. She discovers why Burton's images are still studied today by Egyptologists around the world. And she works with a present-day photographer Harry Cory Wright to find out how Burton pushed the boundaries of photographic art to create his extraordinary and influential pictures of the world's most famous archaeological discovery.
122	Sound Waves: The Symphony of Physics (2017) #988 DOCUMENTARY Main 2x1 hour. BBC. Dr Helen Czerski investigates the extraordinary science behind the sounds we're familiar with and the sounds that we normally can't hear. She begins by exploring the simplest of ideas: what is a sound? At the Palace of Westminster, Helen teams up with scientists from the University of Leicester to carry out state-of-the-art measurements using lasers to reveal how the most famous bell in the world - Big Ben - vibrates to create pressure waves in the air at particular frequencies. This is how Big Ben produces its distinct sound. It's the first time that these laser measurements have been done on Big Ben. With soprano singer Lesley Garrett CBE, Helen explores the science of the singing voice - revealing in intimate detail its inner workings and how it produces sound. Lesley undergoes a laryngoscopy to show the vocal folds of her larynx. At University College London, Lesley sings I Dreamed a Dream inside an MRI scanner to reveal how her vocal tract acts as a 'resonator', amplifying and shaping the sound from her larynx. Having explored the world of sounds with which we are familiar, Helen discovers the hidden world of sounds that lie beyond the range of human hearing. At the summit of Stromboli, one of Europe's most active volcanoes, Helen and volcanologist Dr Jeffrey Johnson use a special microphone to record the extraordinary deep tone produced by the volcano as it explodes - a frequency far too low for the human ear to detect. Helen reveals how the volcano produces sound in a similar way to a musical instrument - with the volcano vent acting as a 'sound resonator'. Finally, at the University of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, Helen meets a scientist who has discovered evidence of sound waves in space, created by a giant black hole. These sounds are one million billion times lower than the limit of human hearing and could be the key in figuring out how galaxy clusters, the largest structures in the universe, grow.
123	The Replacement (2017) #991 TV DRAMA Special 3x1 hour. BBC. Three-part psychological thriller about a woman who goes on maternity leave only to become increasingly paranoid about the motives of the person covering for her. 1/3 Ellen hires Paula as her maternity cover and soon fears she has made a terrible mistake. 2/3 Ellen goes back to work in order to prove Paula has committed a crime. 3/3 Ellen believes she finally has proof that Paula is disturbed.
124	Britain at War: Imperial War Museum at 100 (2017) #992 DOCUMENTARY Main 1 hour. BBC. 2017 marks the centenary year of the establishment of Imperial War Museums. It was founded while the First World War was still raging - and over the past century, IWM has expanded hugely, with five sites including the Churchill War Rooms and HMS Belfast. It shares stories of those who have lived, fought and died in conflicts involving Britain and the Commonwealth. This programme, presented by Falklands veteran and charity campaigner Simon Weston CBE, looks at ten key objects from the IWM's collection. Each of the objects has a special advocate to explore what it reveals about the story of conflict - Bear Grylls ventures onto HMS Belfast, Al Murray looks at a Spitfire at Duxford, and the artists Cornelia Parker and Steve McQueen discuss how they have responded to war and loss in their work. Kate Adie tells the remarkable tale of the typewriter in the Churchill War Rooms, Dame Kelly Holmes meets the extraordinary Johnson Beharry VC to hear about his experiences in the Iraq War, and Anita Rani explores the incredible heroism of one soldier in the British-Indian Army.
125	Britain in Focus: A Photographic History (2017) #993 DOCUMENTARY Main 3x1 hour. BBC. Series in which Eamonn McCabe celebrates Britain's greatest photographers, sees how science allowed their art to develop, and explores how they have captured our changing lives and country. 1/3 Exploring how the new art of photography developed in 19th-century Britain. 2/3 Eamonn traces the emergence of photojournalism in the early 20th century. 3/3 How the colour boom and digital revolution have shaped modern British photography. [Including Peter Mitchell's 'Planet Yorkshire' at Impressions Gallery Bradford.]
126	Peter Kay's Car Share (2017) #996 COMEDY Main 4x30min. BBC. Series 2 1/4 After moving in with her sister, Kayleigh is now travelling on her own to work. 2/4 John and Kayleigh are full of high spirits as they head off on their annual works do. 3/4 Kayleigh has had enough of work and fancies a day off, but John isn't having any of it. 4/4 John enlists the help of his reluctant nan to wait in for a parcel delivery.
127	King Charles III (2017) #998 TV DRAMA Main 90mins. BBC. King Charles III, adapted by Mike Bartlett from his Tony-nominated stage play, is part political thriller, part family drama, and a timely examination of contemporary Britain. Prince Charles has waited his entire life to ascend to the British throne. But after the Queen's death, he immediately finds himself wrestling his conscience over a bill to sign into law. His hesitation detonates a constitutional and political crisis, and his family start to worry, with William and Kate becoming aware his actions may threaten their future. Meanwhile, an unhappy and frustrated Prince Harry starts a relationship with a 'commoner', just at the moment that the press is looking for a way to attack. With the future of the monarchy under threat, protests on the streets and his family in disarray, Charles must grapple with his own identity and purpose to decide whether, in the 21st century, the British crown still has any real power. This adaptation retains the daring verse of the original text while fully realising on screen the ambitious scale and spectacle suggested by the play - from Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace to the restless streets of London. Tim Pigott-Smith (Downton Abbey, The Hour) reprises the role of Charles from the acclaimed West End and Broadway production, while Charlotte Riley (Close to the Enemy, Peaky Blinders) stars as Kate Middleton. Olivier award-winner Rupert Goold (The Hollow Crown, True Story) directs. It is produced by Drama Republic, the company behind Golden Globe, Bafta and RTS Award-winning dramas The Honourable Woman, Doctor Foster and An Inspector Calls.
128	Sgt Pepper's Musical Revolution with Howard Goodall (2017) #1004 DOCUMENTARY-MUSIC Main 1 hour. BBC. Fifty years ago this week, on 1 June, 1967, an album was released that changed music history - The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In this film, composer Howard Goodall explores just why this album is still seen as so innovative, so revolutionary and so influential. With the help of outtakes and studio conversations between the band, never heard before outside of Abbey Road, Howard gets under the bonnet of Sgt Pepper. He takes the music apart and reassembles it, to show us how it works - and makes surprising connections with the music of the last 1,000 years to do so. Sgt Pepper came about as a result of a watershed in The Beatles' career. In August 1966, sick of the screaming mayhem of live shows, they'd taken what was then seen as the career-ending decision to stop touring altogether. Instead, beginning that December, they immersed themselves in Abbey Road with their creative partner, producer George Martin, for an unprecedented five months. What they produced didn't need to be recreated live on stage. The Beatles took full advantage of this freedom, turning the studio from a place where a band went to capture its live sound, as quickly as possible, into an audio laboratory, a creative launch-pad. As Howard shows, they and George Martin and his team constructed the album sound by sound, layer by layer - a formula that became the norm for just about every rock act who followed. In June 1967, after what amounted to a press blackout about what they'd been up to, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released. It was a sensation, immediately becoming the soundtrack to the Summer of Love - and one of the best-selling, most critically lauded albums of all time. It confirmed that a 'pop music' album could be an art form, not just a collection of three-minute singles. It's regularly been voted one of the most important and influential records ever released. In this film, Howard Goodall shows that it is the sheer ambition of Sgt Pepper - in its conception, composition, arrangements and innovative recording techniques - that sets it apart. Made with unprecedented access to The Beatles' pictorial archive, this is an in-depth exploration, in sound and vision, of one of the most important and far-reaching moments in recent music history.
129	Broken (2017) #1012 TV DRAMA Special 6x1 hour episodes. BBC. Series 1 1/6 Father Michael helps a vulnerable parishioner while also caring for his dying mother. 2/6 A desperate parishioner and a mentally ill youth both present dilemmas for Father Michael. 3/6 Father Michael helps a police officer. 4/6 Father Michael risks breaking the seal of confession as he tries to help Roz Demichelis. 5/6 Father Michael mediates when Helen's homophobic brother clashes with her gay neighbour. 6/6 Father Michael makes a confession and Chloe wreaks a devastating revenge.
130	Frank Lloyd Wright: The Man Who Built America (2017) #1022 DOCUMENTARY Main Frank Lloyd Wright is America's greatest ever architect. But few people know about the Welsh roots that shaped his life and world-famous buildings. Now, leading Welsh architect Jonathan Adams sets off across America to explore Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpieces for himself. Along the way, he uncovers the tempestuous life story of the man behind them, and the secrets of his radical Welsh background. In a career spanning seven decades, Frank Lloyd Wright built over 500 buildings, and changed the face of modern architecture. Fallingwater, the house over the waterfall, has been called the greatest house of the 20th century. The spiralling Guggenheim Museum in New York reinvented the art museum. Wright's Welsh mother was born and raised near Llandysul in west Wales, and emigrated to America with her family in 1844. Her son Frank was raised in a Unitarian community in Wisconsin. The values he absorbed there were based on a love of nature, the importance of hard work, and the need to question convention and defy it where necessary. Wright's architecture was shaped by these beliefs. He built his lifelong home in the valley he was raised in, and he named it after an ancient Welsh bard - Taliesin. It was the scene of many adventures, and of a horrific crime. In 1914, a servant at Taliesin ran amok and killed seven people. They included Wright's partner, Mamah Cheney, and her two young children. 150 years after his birth, Adams argues that Frank Lloyd Wright is now a vitally important figure who can teach us how to build for a better world. Wright's belief in what he called organic architecture - buildings that grace the landscape and respond to people's individual needs - is more relevant than ever, in Wales and around the world.
131	Goodbye Cassini - Hello Saturn (2017) #1031 DOCUMENTARY Main 1 hour. BBC. Horizon. A billion miles from home, running low on fuel, and almost out of time. After 13 years traversing the Saturn system, the spacecraft Cassini is plunging to a fiery death, becoming part of the very planet it has been exploring. As it embarks on its final assignment - a one-way trip into the heart of Saturn - Horizon celebrates the incredible achievements and discoveries of a mission that has changed the way we see the solar system. Strange new worlds with gigantic ice geysers, hidden underground oceans that could harbour life and a brand new moon coalescing in Saturn's magnificent rings. As the world says goodbye to the great explorer Cassini, Horizon will be there for with a ringside seat for its final moments.
132	Who Do You Think You Are? Ruby Wax (2017) #1036 DOCUMENTARY Main 1 hour. BBC. Ruby Wax's Jewish parents fled Vienna and the Nazis for America in 1938. 'They took the war with them and brought it to our kitchen,' says the comedian and mental-health campaigner at the start of this remarkable episode. They raised their only daughter in a dramatically dysfunctional household - Ruby's father was volatile and her mother 'hysterical... screaming in the street.' Ruby wonders if her own mental illness had its origins in her upbringing and the trauma her parents went through, or whether it is in her family's genes. Ruby journeys to central Europe, where she learns about her parents' flight and the distressing fate of family who remained in Vienna during the war, and she makes a startling discovery about her great-aunt and great-grandmother, which is both harrowing and surprisingly affirming.
133	Lucy Worsley: Elizabeth I's Battle for God's Music (2017) #1041 DOCUMENTARY Main 1 hour. BBC. Lucy Worsley investigates the story of the most remarkable creation from the tumultuous and violent era known as the Reformation - choral evensong. Henry VIII loved religious music, but he loved power more - when he instigated his English Reformation he dramatically split from the ancient Catholic church that controlled much of his country. But in doing so set into motion changes that would fundamentally transform the religious music he loved. Following Elizabeth I's personal story, Lucy recounts how she and her two siblings were shaped by the changes their father instigated. Elizabeth witnessed both her radically puritan brother Edward bring church music to the very brink of destruction and the terrifying reversals made by her sister Mary - which saw her thrown in the Tower of London forced to beg for her life. When Elizabeth finally took power she was determined to find a religious compromise - she resurrected the Protestant religion of her brother, but kept the music of her beloved father - music that she too adored. And it was in the evocative service of choral evensong that her ideas about religious music found their ultimate expression.
134	The Vietnam War (2017) #1043 DOCUMENTARY Special BBC plus. 10x1 hour. 1/10 Deja Vu (1858-1961). Vietnamese revolutionaries led by Ho Chi Minh end French colonial occupation. 2/10 Riding the Tiger (1961-1963). President Kennedy and his advisors wrestle with how far to get involved in South Vietnam. 3/10 Hell Come to Earth (January 1964-December 1965). With South Vietnam in chaos, Hanoi hardliners seize the initiative and send combat troops. 4/10 Doubt (January 1966-June 1967). Defying American airpower, North Vietnamese troops stream down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 5/10 This Is What We Do (July 1967-December 1967). American casualties and enemy body counts mount as marines face North Vietnamese ambushes. 6/10 Things Fall Apart (January 1968-June 1968). North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launch surprise attacks on cities and bases. 7/10 Chasing Ghosts (June 1968-May 1969). Public support for the war declines. American men of draft age face difficult decisions. 8/10 A Sea of Fire (April 1969-May 1970). With morale plummeting in Vietnam, President Nixon begins withdrawing American troops. 9/10 Fratricide (May 1970-March 1973). South Vietnamese forces fighting on their own in Laos suffer a terrible defeat. 10/10 The Weight of Memory (March 1973-Onward). While Watergate forces Nixon to resign, the Vietnamese savage one another in a civil war.
135	W1A (2017) #1044 COMEDY Special 6x30min epsiodes. Series 3. 1/6 It is the year of charter renewal and a critical time for the BBC. 2/6 Cross-dressing ex-footballer Ryan Chelford's appearance on MOTD did not go well. 3/6 The Renewal Team propose that the cutting of the BBC Big Swing Band might be an option. 4/6 The damage limitation team under Ian Fletcher is under huge pressure to limit damage. 5/6 The renewal group has to respond to rumours that Claudia Winkleman is leaving the BBC. 6/6 The official launch of BBC Me is nearing the final furlong.
136	Gunpowder (2017) #1045 TV DRAMA Main 3x1 hour episodes. BBC. 1/3 As the persecution of Catholics intensifies, a young nobleman resolves to avenge his kin. 2/3 As Cecil closes in, Catesby seeks help for his rebellion and gathers plotters. 3/3 The plotters load the tunnels below Parliament with barrels of gunpowder.
137	Elizabeth I's Secret Agents (2017) #1046 DOCUMENTARY Main 3x1 hour. BBC. A look at the secret network behind Queen Elizabeth I's 40-year reign and the world's first secret service run by her spymasters Robert and William Cecil. 1/3 Spymaster William Cecil must stop Catholic assassins after the queen is declared a heretic. 2/3 An ambitious aristocrat tries to take over Robert Cecil's spy network. 3/3 Robert Cecil exposes the gunpowder plot.
138	Revolution: New Art for a New World (2017) #1047 DOCUMENTARY Main 80mins. BBC. Directed by acclaimed film-maker Margy Kinmonth, this bold and exciting feature documentary encapsulates a momentous period in the history of Russia and the Russian avant-garde. Drawing on the collections of major Russian institutions, contributions from contemporary artists, curators and performers, and personal testimony from the descendants of those involved, the film brings the artists of the Russian avant-garde to life. It tells the stories of artists like Chagall, Kandinsky, Malevich and others - pioneers who flourished in response to the utopian challenge of building a new art for a new world, only to be broken by implacable authority after 15 short years. Stalin's rise to power marked the close of this momentous period, consigning the avant-garde to obscurity. Yet the Russian avant-garde continues to exert a lasting influence over art movements up to the present day. The film confirms this, exploring the fascination that these colourful paintings, inventive sculptures and propaganda posters retain over the modern consciousness 100 years on. It was filmed entirely on location in Moscow, St Petersburg and London, with access to the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the State Hermitage Museum and in co-operation with the Royal Academy of Arts, London. The film features paintings previously banned and unseen for decades, and masterpieces which rarely leave Russia. Contributors include museum directors Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky and Zelfira Tregulova, and film director Andrei Konchalovsky. The film also features the voices of Matthew Macfadyen, Tom Hollander, James Fleet, Eleanor Tomlinson and Daisy Bevan.
139	Stunning Soloists at the BBC (2017) #1050 MUSIC Main 1 hour. BBC. Solo show-stoppers from the world's greatest musicians in a journey through fifty years of BBC Music. From guitarist John Williams and cellist Jacqueline du Pre to trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and violinist Nigel Kennedy, this is a treasure trove of musical treats and dazzling virtuosity. Whether it's James Galway's Flight of the Bumblebee performed at superhuman speed, Ravi Shankar's mesmerising Raag Bihag or Dudley Moore's brilliant Colonel Bogey March, every performance has its own star quality and unique appeal. Parkinson, Later with Jools Holland, The Les Dawson Show, Music at Night and Wogan are among the programmes featuring instruments ranging from marimba and kora to harp and flamenco guitar. Sit back and enjoy.
140	Van Morrison: Live at Eden (2017) #1052 MUSIC Main 1 hour. BBC. Van Morrison and his band at Cornwall's Eden Project July 2017, performing fourteen songs including well-known hits Here Comes the Night, Moondance and Brown Eyed Girl. The Belfast-born all-time music legend Sir Van Morrison played against the world-famous Eden biomes to a sold-out arena. Van's performance was a highlight of the sixteenth year of the Eden Sessions. Sir Van Morrison was knighted in 2016 for services to music and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He has won six Grammys, a Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution and the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement.

PAGE  6   7   8   9   10    42
 Recent...