| 401 |
The Fantastic Mr Feynman (2013) #743
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Richard Feynman is one of the most iconic, influential and inspiring scientists of the 20th century. He helped design the atomic bomb, solved the mystery of the Challenger Shuttle catastrophe and won a Nobel Prize. Now, 25 years after his death - in his own words and those of his friends and family - this is the story of the most captivating communicator in the history of science. |
| 402 |
Rupert Murdoch - Battle With Britain (2013) #744
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. In the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, Rupert Murdoch has been accused of corrupting British media and contaminating politics. Yet the caricature image of him as the 'Dirty Digger', the sinister head of a global media empire, in fact obscures deeper, more significant truths - not least about Britain itself. Rupert Murdoch can be seen as an agent of change, a revolutionary almost, who has been a vital part of the transformation of Britain over the last 45 years. He rode the wave of social change that swept a gloomy postwar country into the modern world and his ability to understand what people wanted and give it to them made him rich and powerful. Yet his part in this cultural, political and industrial revolution also brought Rupert Murdoch into conflict with the establishment and vested interests in all their guises. It may even have ultimately cost him his life's ambition - to see the business he has built carried on inside the family by one of his children. Steve Hewlett tells the story of Rupert Murdoch's 40-year battle with Britain. |
| 403 |
The United States of Television: America in Primetime (2013) #745
DOCUMENTARY
Main
4x1 hour episodes. Alan Yentob presents the first in a series of star-studded documentaries on the history of primetime television in America. With a potential audience in excess of 300 million to please, the most popular and enduring drama series and sitcoms have had to track the dramatic changes that have transformed America since the age of mass television began in the 1950s, so this more than an entertainment history, it's a social history of the 'United States of Television'. Man of the House traces the trajectory of the archetypal American dad from the breadwinning patriarch of the 'Honey I'm Home' 1950s to the angst-ridden, plate-spinning multitasker who has to build his home on the shifting sands of the 21st century. From the cast iron certainties and benign omniscience of Jim X (Father Knows Best) and Andy Griffith to the crippling anxieties and bad choices Tony Soprano and Homer Simpson, Man of the House takes us on the rollercoaster ride of six decades of American masculinity. Includes interviews with legendary creators, stars, writers and producers: Ron Howard (The Andy Griffith Show), David Lynch (Twin Peaks), Rob Reiner (The Dick Van Dyke Show), David Chase (The Sopranos), John Hamm (Mad Men). James L. Brooks (The Simpsons) and many more. |
| 404 |
A Night at the Rijksmuseum (2013) #747
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Andrew Graham-Dixon goes behind the scenes at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, as the staff prepare to open the doors following a ten-year renovation, the most significant ever undertaken by a museum. Featuring over 8,000 works of art, Holland's national museum tells the story of 800 years of Dutch history and houses a world-famous collection including masterpieces by artists from Vermeer to Rembrandt. So, as the final paintings are rehung and objects settle into their new home, has the long wait been worth it? |
| 405 |
Buck: The Real Horse Whisperer (2013) #749
DOCUMENTARY
Main
85 minutes. BBC. Storyville: Documentary following horse whisperer Buck Brannaman from a painful childhood to his inspiring work as a trainer. It may be the stuff of Hollywood legend, but the cowboy who inspired the novel and film is very real. Buck - master horseman, raconteur and philosopher - is a no-excuses cowboy who travels the world sharing a hard-won wisdom that is often more about human relationships than about horses. As Buck says, 'Often instead of helping people with horse problems, I'm helping horses with people problems.' He possesses near magical abilities as he dramatically transforms horses - and people - with his deep understanding, compassion and respect. |
| 406 |
Nina Conti: Talk to the Hand (2013) #749
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Ventriloquist and comedian Nina Conti performs a show in Sydney, accompanied by characters like Monkey and Gran. |
| 407 |
Horizon: The Secret Life of the Cat (2013) #751
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Horizon discovers what your cat really gets up to when it leaves the cat flap. In a groundbreaking experiment, 50 cats from a village in Surrey are tagged with GPS collars and their every movement is recorded, day and night, as they hunt in our backyards and patrol the garden fences and hedgerows. Cats are fitted with specially developed cat-cams which reveal their unique view of our world. You may think you understand your pet, but their secret life is more surprising than we thought. |
| 408 |
Alan Whicker's Journey of a Lifetime: Europe (2013) #753
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Celebrating a remarkable fifty years on television, TV legend and undisputed travel king Alan Whicker sets off round the world on a journey reflecting his incredibly varied life and career. In this first episode, Whicker revisits Venice, a city of massive significance and very close to his heart, to retrace his steps from war to peace, from soldier to Fleet Street journalist, and then his subsequent move into the fledgling world of television. Included in the films revisited in this episode are Whicker's earliest surviving TV appearance, in-depth profiles of John Paul Getty and Baroness Fiona Thyssen, and a legendary encounter with millionaire Yorkshireman and eccentric Percy Shaw - the man who invented cats' eyes. Finally, the remarkable story of what happened when Whicker became the first man to enter a closed and silent order of nuns - and got them to talk to him. |
| 409 |
Martin Luther King and the March on Washington (2013) #754
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Documentary commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's March on Washington, a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. This programme tells the story of the how the march for jobs and freedom began, speaking to the people who organised and participated in it. Using rarely seen archive footage the film reveals the background stories surrounding the build up to the march as well as the fierce opposition it faced from the JFK administration, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and widespread claims that it would incite racial violence, chaos and disturbance. The film follows the unfolding drama as the march reaches its ultimate triumphs, gaining acceptance from the state, successfully raising funds and in the end, organised and executed peacefully - and creating a landmark moment in the struggle for civil rights and racial equality in the united states. Including interviews with some of the key actors: members of the inner circles of the core organizational groups such as Jack O'Dell, Clarence B. Jones, Julian Bond and Andrew Young; Hollywood supporters and civil rights campaigners including Harry Belafonte, Diahann Carroll and Sidney Poitier; Performing artists at the March such as Joan Baez and Peter Yarrow; as well as JFK administration official, Harris Wofford; the CBS Broadcaster who reported from the March, Roger Mudd; Clayborne Carson, the founding director of Stanford's Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute and a participant in the March; as well as those who witnessed the march on TV and were influenced by it, such as Oprah Winfrey, and most of all, the remembrances of the ordinary citizens who joined some 250,000 Americans at the capital on that momentous. |
| 410 |
Horizon: Defeating the Hackers (2013) #755
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Exploring the murky and fast-paced world of the hackers out to steal money and identities and wreak havoc with people's online lives, and the scientists who are joining forces to help defeat them. Horizon meets the two men who uncovered the world's first cyber weapon, the pioneers of what is called ultra paranoid computing, and the computer expert who worked out how to hack into cash machines. |
| 411 |
The Genius of Turner: Painting the Industrial Revolution (2013) #758
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. A film that looks at the genius of JMW Turner in a new light. There is more to Turner than his sublime landscapes - he also painted machines, science, technology and industry. Turner's life spans the Industrial Revolution, he witnessed it as it unfolded, and he painted it. In the process he created a whole new kind of art. The programme examines nine key Turner paintings and shows how we should rethink them in the light of the scientific and Industrial Revolution. Includes interviews with historian Simon Schama and artist Tracey Emin. |
| 412 |
Nina Conti: Talk to the Hand (2013) #759
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Ventriloquist and comedian Nina Conti performs a show in Sydney, accompanied by characters like Monkey and Gran. |
| 413 |
Horizon: What Makes us Human? (2013) #761
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Professor Alice Roberts is making a new human being - she is pregnant with her second child. But before he is born, she wants to find out what makes a human, human? What is that separates us from our closest living relatives - the chimpanzees? We share 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees and yet from the moment of birth, our lives are completely different. So are we just another animal, or is there something special about being human? Before her new baby emerges into the world, Professor Roberts sets out to explore what it is about our bodies, our genes and ultimately our brains that set us apart from our furry cousins - what is it that truly makes us human? |
| 414 |
The Two-Thousand-Year-Old Computer (2013) #762
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. In 1901, a group of divers excavating an ancient Roman shipwreck near the island of Antikythera, off the southern coast of Greece, found a mysterious object - a lump of calcified stone that contained within it several gearwheels welded together after years under the sea. The 2,000-year-old object, no bigger than a modern laptop, is now regarded as the world's oldest computer, devised to predict solar eclipses and, according to recent findings, calculate the timing of the ancient Olympics. Following the efforts of an international team of scientists, the mysteries of the Antikythera Mechanism are uncovered, revealing surprising and awe-inspiring details of the object that continues to mystify. |
| 415 |
Sound of Cinema: The Music that Made the Movies (2013) #763
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1hour episodes. BBC. Series celebrating the art of the cinema soundtrack, as Neil Brand explores the work of the great movie composers and demonstrates their techniques. |
| 416 |
Secret Voices of Hollywood (2013) #764
DOCUMENTARY
Main
90mins. BBC. In many of Hollywood's greatest movie musicals the stars did not sing their own songs. This documentary pulls back the curtain to reveal the secret world of the 'ghost singers' who provided the vocals, the screen legends who were dubbed and the classic movies in which the songs were ghosted. |
| 417 |
Imagine: Zaha Hadid: Who Dares Wins (2013) #767
DOCUMENTARY
Main
75 mins. BBC. Alan Yentob's profile of the late Zaha Hadid, first shown in 2013, three years before her recent death. Born in Baghdad in 1950 and based in London, Hadid was perhaps the most successful female architect there has ever been. She was one of a handful of global superstar designers who have changed the way people think about the world through buildings. Yet this wasn't always the case - Hadid once had a reputation as unbuildable, a 'paper architect' whose projects began as vivid paintings of gravity-defying shapes exploding into the void. How did this extraordinary and pioneering woman - by turns charming, stubborn, visionary yet exacting - come to build the impossible? Imagine visits her buildings across the globe, from Austria to Azerbaijan, to find out. |
| 418 |
After Life: The Strange Science of Decay (2013) #768
DOCUMENTARY
Main
90mins. BBC. Ever wondered what would happen in your own home if you were taken away, and everything inside was left to rot? The answer is revealed in this fascinating programme, which explores the strange and surprising science of decay. For two months in summer 2011, a glass box containing a typical kitchen and garden was left to rot in full public view within Edinburgh Zoo. In this resulting documentary, presenter Dr George McGavin and his team use time-lapse cameras and specialist photography to capture the extraordinary way in which moulds, microbes and insects are able to break down our everyday things and allow new life to emerge from old. Decay is something that many of us are repulsed by. But as the programme shows, it's a process that's vital in nature. And seen in close-up, it has an unexpected and sometimes mesmerising beauty. |
| 419 |
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here (2013) #769
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. John Edginton's documentary explores the making of Pink Floyd's ninth studio album, Wish You Were Here, which was released in September 1975 and went on to top the album charts both in the UK and the US. Featuring new interviews with band members Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason alongside contributions from the likes of sleeve designer Storm Thorgerson and photographer Jill Furmanovsky, the film is a forensic study of the making of the follow-up to 1973's Dark Side of the Moon, which was another conceptual piece driven by Roger Waters. The album wrestles with the legacy of the band's first leader, Syd Barrett, who had dropped out of the band in 1968 and is eulogised in the album's centrepiece, Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Pink Floyd had become one of the biggest bands in the world, but the 60s were over and the band were struggling both to find their purpose and the old camaraderie. |
| 420 |
Imagine: Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy (2013) #770
DOCUMENTARY
Main
90mins. BBC. For generations of Jewish songwriters, the bright lights of Broadway have been a catalyst for transformation. New York's musical theatres offered a chance for those who had fled persecution and oppression to make it big in America. On Broadway, the idea of outsiders beating the odds could be dramatised in a uniquely American art form, with melodies derived from Jewish prayers inspiring catchy new songs that tens of millions around the world would come to embrace. imagine... looks at the unique role Jews have played in creating the modern American musical, from Porgy and Bess to West Side Story and Cabaret. Featuring performances by Broadway's most creative talents, plus a medley of amazing archive footage and interviews, the film explores the work of some of America's pre-eminent musical maestros - including Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Kurt Weill, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Jule Styne. |
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