| 221 |
Dan Cruickshank: Resurrecting History: Warsaw (2015) #893
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Dan Cruickshank returns to his childhood home of Warsaw for the first time in almost 60 years. In a personal and moving film, he recalls his boyhood memories to explore the memories of the city and the memories of its people. No city in Europe suffered so much destruction in the Second World War, no city rose up so heroically from the ashes. The Nazis had razed Warsaw to the ground, but after the war the people fought hard to bring their city back from the dead in one of the greatest reconstruction jobs in history. As a boy, Cruickshank lived in the rebuilt old town and it inspired his love of architecture and made him the man he is today. |
| 222 |
Imagine: My Curious Documentary (2015) #898
DOCUMENTARY
Main
80 mins. BBC. Since opening at the National Theatre in 2013, the stage production of Mark Haddon's bestselling book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time has gone on to win seven Olivier Awards, and the Broadway production recently took New York by storm. The story in both the book and the play is told by a 15-year-old boy who finds other people frightening and confusing, and it has helped transform our understanding of a neurological condition that affects one in a hundred children. Imagine meets those involved in the play, from early rehearsals and research to stage performances in both London and New York. This is interwoven with moving testimony from other children and families on the challenges they face as they live with autism. |
| 223 |
The Great British Year (2015) #899
DOCUMENTARY
Main
2x1 hour episodes. BBC. A portrait of the spectacular, dynamic nature of Britain over the course of one year. 1/4 Winter. In the midst of winter, time-lapses show a magical country shrouded in frost and mist. 2/4 Spring. Spring arrives, marking the start of an epic race for life where timing is everything. |
| 224 |
The Great British Year (2015) #900
DOCUMENTARY
Main
2x1 hour episodes. BBC. A portrait of the spectacular, dynamic nature of Britain over the course of one year. 3/4 Summer. Whilst the human population of Britain kicks back, summer is boom time for the animals. 4/4 Autumn. The fading sun brings a change to Britain - a time of storms and unpredictable weather. |
| 225 |
A Very British Romance with Lucy Worsley (2015) #901
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1 hour episodes. BBC. Lucy Worsley delves into the history of romance to uncover the forces shaping our very British happily ever after and how our feelings have been affected by social, political and cultural ideas. 1/3 The Georgian age saw courtship rules being rewritten, as romantic love was glamorised. 2/3 Lucy Worsley discovers how medieval chivalry shaped Victorian courtship. 3/3 Lucy Worsley concludes her series by looking at attitudes to romance in the 20th century. |
| 226 |
The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms (2015) #908
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Without us noticing, modern life has been taken over. Algorithms run everything from search engines on the internet to satnavs and credit card data security - they even help us travel the world, find love and save lives. Mathematician Professor Marcus du Sautoy demystifies the hidden world of algorithms. By showing us some of the algorithms most essential to our lives, he reveals where these 2,000-year-old problem solvers came from, how they work, what they have achieved and how they are now so advanced they can even programme themselves. |
| 227 |
Sound of Song (2015) #910
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1 hour episodes. BBC. Composer and musician Neil Brand presents a series which explores the magical elements that come together to create our favourite songs. 1/3 The Recording Revolution. How songs were first recorded and the listening revolution in the home that followed. 2/3 Reeling and Rocking. Neil Brand recreates innovative recording sessions by the likes of Elvis and the Beatles. 3/3 Mix It Up and Start Again. In the modern era, song creation was transformed by digital technology and the computer. |
| 228 |
Imagine: Frank Gehry: The Architect Says (2015) #915
DOCUMENTARY
Main
75 mins. BBC. A fascinating look at the colourful career of architect Frank Gehry who despite being well into his eighties remains one of the world's most celebrated and famously provocative creative forces. From the iconic Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao to LA's Walt Disney Concert Hall, Gehry's buildings both intrigue and ignite. For Frank, rules are there to be broken. Alan Yentob explores Gehry's remarkable journey from poor outsider in Toronto to global 'starchitect' and follows the construction of a characteristically audacious new Gehry building in Sydney - his first in Australia. |
| 229 |
Joan of Arc: God's Warrior (2015) #919
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Writer and historian Dr Helen Castor explores the life - and death - of Joan of Arc. Joan was an extraordinary figure - a female warrior in an age that believed women couldn't fight, let alone lead an army. But Joan was driven by faith, and today more than ever we are acutely aware of the power of faith to drive actions for good or ill. Since her death, Joan has become an icon for almost everyone - the left and the right, Catholics and Protestants, traditionalists and feminists. But where in all of this is the real Joan - the experiences of a teenage peasant girl who achieved the seemingly impossible? Through an astonishing manuscript, we can hear Joan's own words at her trial, and as Helen unpicks Joan's story and places her back in the world that she inhabited, the real human Joan emerges. |
| 230 |
Je t'aime: The Story of French Song with Petula Clark (2015) #921
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. "I want to make people cry even when they don't understand my words." - Edith Piaf This unique film explores the story of the lyric-driven French chanson and looks at some of the greatest artists and examples of the form. Award-winning singer and musician Petula Clark, who shot to stardom in France in the late 1950s for her nuanced singing and lyrical exploration, is our guide. We meet singers and artists who propelled chanson into the limelight, including Charles Aznavour (a protégé of Edith Piaf), Juliette Greco (whom Jean-Paul Sartre described as having 'a million poems in her voice'), Anna Karina (muse of Jean-Luc Godard and darling of the French Cinema's New Wave), actress and singer Jane Birkin, who had a global hit (along with Serge Gainsbourg) with the controversial Je t'aime (Moi non plus), and Marc Almond, who has received great acclaim with his recordings of Jacques Brel songs. In exploring the famous chanson tradition and the prodigious singers who made the songs their own, we continue the story into contemporary French composition, looking at new lyrical forms exemplified by current artists such as Stromae, Zaz, Têtes Raides and Etienne Daho, who also give exclusive interviews. The film shines a spotlight onto a musical form about which the British are largely unfamiliar, illuminating a history that is tender, funny, revealing and absorbing. |
| 231 |
The Pennine Way (2015) #925
DOCUMENTARY
Main
4x30 min episodes. Explorer Paul Rose presents a documentary on the Pennine Way, Britain's first national trail, as it celebrates its 50th birthday 1/4 Paul Rose discovers how the route has changed over the last half century. 2/4 Paul Rose visits the village of Malham in the Dales, where the Pennine Way was inaugurated 3/4 Paul Rose heads to the North Pennines and enjoys white-water rafting down the River Tees. 4/4 Paul Rose heads into Northumberland on the final stage of his Pennine Way journey. |
| 232 |
Treasures of Ancient Greece (2015) #926
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1 hour episodes. BBC. Series in which Alastair Sooke explores the riches and unique legacy of Greek art. 1/3 The Age of Heroes. Alastair Sooke explores the surprising roots of Greek art, beginning his journey in Crete. 2/3 The Classical Revolution. Alastair unpicks the reasons behind the revolution that gave birth to classical Greek art. 3/3 The Long Shadow. Exploring the afterlife of Greek masterpieces that changed the course of western culture. |
| 233 |
Nina Conti Clowning Around (2015) #928
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Award-winning ventriloquist Nina Conti and her much-loved puppet Monkey are a huge hit in comedy clubs around the world and stars of Live at the Apollo. But now she wants to put her skills to a more meaningful end on a much more difficult stage - entertaining children in hospitals. This film follows Nina as she trains as a giggle doctor with Theodora Children's Charity, beginning with her trying to find her clown persona, who might be Scottish... or might not. Devastated by the discovery that Monkey can only perform in hospitals if he can be boil-washed, Nina tries to go it alone with only a red nose, a few misshapen balloon animals and some slightly disappointing magic tricks. Not to mention her professional snobbery rearing up as she finds herself turning into a baby-voiced children's entertainer. Then there are the difficulties she encounters when faced with clown phobia. Following her directorial debut with Her Master's Voice which won a Grierson Award and a BAFTA nomination, Nina Conti brings us another frank and intimate documentary about her eventful two-year stint as a hospital clown. Join her to discover whether Nina raised a laugh amongst sick children or whether she cried the tears of a clown. |
| 234 |
Hockney (2015) #934
DOCUMENTARY
Main
105mins. BBC. Hockney is the definitive exploration of one of the most significant artists of his generation. For the first time, David Hockney has given access to his personal archive of photographs and film, resulting in an unparalleled visual diary of a long life. 'I'm interested in ways of looking and trying to think of it in simple ways. If you can communicate that, of course people will respond - after all, everybody does look.' His is a long-term one-man campaign against the pessimism of the world, mastering new media - whether acrylic paint or iPad digits - in the search for a picture adequate to his sense of what it is to be alive. The film chronicles Hockney's vast career, from his early life in working-class Bradford, where his love for pictures was developed through his admiration for cinema, to his relocation to Hollywood, where his life-long struggle to escape labels ('queer', 'working class', figurative artist') was fully realised. David Hockney offers theories about art, the universe and everything. But as Hockney reveals, it's the hidden self-interrogation that gives his famously optimistic pictures their unexpected edge and attack. As one of his oldest friends says of his early work, 'the pictures are not just about men fucking'. The subject matter is a way into the picture to see something else, to open our eyes and our minds. Acclaimed film-maker Randall Wright offers a unique view of this unconventional artist who is now reaching new peaks of popularity worldwide, remains as charismatic as ever and at seventy seven is still working in the studio seven days a week. |
| 235 |
Adam Curtis: Bitter Lake (2015) #942
DOCUMENTARY
Main
137 mins. BBC. Politicians used to have the confidence to tell us stories that made sense of the chaos of world events. But now there are no big stories and politicians react randomly to every new crisis - leaving us bewildered and disorientated. Bitter Lake is an adventurous and epic film by Adam Curtis that explains why the big stories that politicians tell us have become so simplified that we can’t really see the world any longer. The narrative goes all over the world, America, Britain, Russia and Saudi Arabia - but the country at the heart of it is Afghanistan. Because Afghanistan is the place that has confronted our politicians with the terrible truth - that they cannot understand what is going on any longer. The film reveals the forces that over the past thirty years rose up and undermined the confidence of politics to understand the world. And it shows the strange, dark role that Saudi Arabia has played in this. But Bitter Lake is also experimental. Curtis has taken the unedited rushes of everything that the BBC has ever shot in Afghanistan - and used them in new and radical ways. He has tried to build a different and more emotional way of depicting what really happened in Afghanistan. A counterpoint to the thin, narrow and increasingly destructive stories told by those in power today. |
| 236 |
The Lady in the Van (2015) #958
FILM
Main
Directed by Nicholas Hytner. With Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Clare Hammond. A man forms an unexpected bond with a transient woman living in her van that's parked in his driveway. |
| 237 |
Colonia (aka The Colony) (2015) #965
FILM
Main
Directed by Florian Gallenberger. With Emma Watson, Daniel Brühl, Michael Nyqvist, Richenda Carey. A young woman's desperate search for her abducted boyfriend that draws her into the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a sect nobody has ever escaped from. |
| 238 |
Humans S1 (2015) #984
TV DRAMA
Special
With Katherine Parkinson, Lucy Carless, Gemma Chan, Tom Goodman-Hill. In a parallel present where the latest must-have gadget for any busy family is a 'Synth' - a highly-developed robotic servant that's so similar to a real human it's transforming the way we live. 8x50min episodes. C4. |
| 239 |
Is Britain Racist? (2015) #990
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Racism has never been more socially unacceptable in Britain - three quarters of Britons claim they have no racial prejudice whatsoever. Journalist Mona Chalabi investigates whether these statistics provide an accurate picture. To find out what is happening on Britain's streets, three reporters are sent undercover to test the public's prejudice. The results are surprising. The programme looks into people's subconscious behaviour, discovering what British people really think about their neighbours of different races and religions. And Mona puts her own beliefs under the microscope, discovering some uncomfortable truths. Finally, she asks a hugely significant question - can people be trained to lose their prejudice? |
| 240 |
Scotland's Einstein: James Clerk Maxwell - The Man Who Changed the World (2015) #1019
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Professor Iain Stewart reveals the story behind the Scottish physicist who was Einstein's hero - James Clerk Maxwell. Maxwell's discoveries not only inspired Einstein, but they helped shape our modern world - allowing the development of radio, TV, mobile phones and much more. Despite this, he is largely unknown in his native land of Scotland. Scientist Iain Stewart sets out to change that, and to celebrate the life, work and legacy of the man dubbed 'Scotland's forgotten Einstein'. |
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