101 |
Face of Britain by Simon Schama (2015) #903
DOCUMENTARY
Main
2x1 hour episodes. BBC. Simon Schama explores the history of British portraiture, revealing the stories behind the most compelling images in British art and examining the ways portraiture is used to make a statement. 3/5 The Face of Fame. Simon examines what the celebrated faces of Britain's past and present tell us. 4/5 The Look of Love. Simon explores how portraits allow us to keep the ones we love close to us. |
102 |
Face of Britain by Simon Schama (2015) #904
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1x1 hour episode. BBC. Simon Schama explores the history of British portraiture, revealing the stories behind the most compelling images in British art and examining the ways portraiture is used to make a statement. 5/5 The Face in the Mirror. Simon Schama explores the complex motivations behind Britain's famous self-portraits. |
103 |
Britain Beneath Your Feet (2015) #907
DOCUMENTARY
Main
2x1 hour episodes. BBC. Dallas Campbell reveals why we can only understand the familiar world around us by discovering the hidden wonders beneath our feet. 1/2 Building Britain. Dallas Campbell reveals the hidden wonders beneath our feet. 2/2 On the Move. Dallas Campbell explores how what goes on underground keeps our country on the move. |
104 |
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. |
105 |
Genius of the Ancient World (2015) #909
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1 hour episodes. BBC. Historian Bettany Hughes travels to India, Greece and China on the trail of three giants of ancient philosophy - Buddha, Socrates and Confucius. 1/3 Buddha. Bettany Hughes travels to India to investigate the revolutionary ideas of the Buddha. 2/3 Socrates. Bettany Hughes is in Greece, on the trail of the influential maverick thinker Socrates. 3/3 Confucius. Bettany Hughes visits China on the trail of Confucius, a great sage of Chinese history. |
106 |
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. |
107 |
Light and Dark (2015) #914
DOCUMENTARY
Main
2x1 hour episodes. BBC. In this mind-bending series, Professor Jim Al-Khalili shows how by uncovering its secrets, scientists have used light to reveal the universe. 1/2 Light. Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the story of how we used light to reveal the cosmos. 2/2 Dark. Prof Jim Al-Khalili investigates the 99 per cent of the cosmos that is hidden in the dark. |
108 |
Armada: 12 Days to Save England (2015) #917
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1 hour episodes. BBC. Dan Snow takes to the sea to tell the story of how England came within a whisker of disaster in summer 1588. Anita Dobson stars as Elizabeth I. 1/3 Dan Snow tells the story of how England came within a whisker of disaster in summer 1588. 2/3 The Battle for England. A look inside the court of Elizabeth as the Spanish fleet prepares for full-on invasion. 3/3 Endgame. Documents reveal a web of misunderstandings that stopped the Spanish from invading. |
109 |
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. |
110 |
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. |
111 |
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. |
112 |
Dancing Cheek to Cheek: An Intimate History of Dance (2015) #935
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1 hour episodes. BBC. Len Goodman and Lucy Worsley uncover the British love affair with dancing, exploring the nation's favourite dances from the 17th to the 20th centuries. 1/3 The Devil's Work?. How dancing came to be celebrated as an essential social skill in the 18th century. 2/3 Revolution on the Dance Floor. How our dance floors were revolutionised in the 19th century by faster, freer dances. 3/3 The Shock of the New. How the early 20th century saw the most revolutionary change in British dance history. |
113 |
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. |
114 |
The BBC at War (2015) #997
DOCUMENTARY
Main
2x1 hour episodes. BBC. An enthralling series exploring how the BBC fought not only Hitler but also the British government to become the institution it is today. 1/2 The War of Words. Jonathan Dimbleby reveals how the BBC prepared for the first broadcast war. 2/2 Into Battle. The story of how the BBC prepared to report from the front line during World War II. |
115 |
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'. |
116 |
Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain: A New Dawn (2014) #673
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Episode 1. In the first of a six-part series, Andrew Marr revisits Britain at the dawn of the 20th century. He finds the country mourning the death of Queen Victoria, fighting an intractable war against the Boers in South Africa, enjoying the bawdy pleasures of music hall and worrying about the physical and moral strength of the working class. There are stories of political intrigue between David Lloyd George and his arch-enemy Joseph Chamberlain, as well as the beginning of the struggle for women's suffrage. Plus an account of the day Mr Rolls met Mr Royce and kicked off a revolution in motoring. With powerful archive and vivid anecdotes, Andrew Marr gets to the heart of Edwardian Britain. He brings to life Britain's struggle to maintain its imperial power in the world in the years before the First World War. |
117 |
37 Days (2014) #835
TV DRAMA
Main
3x1 hour. BBC. Revealing the complex behind-closed-doors story of the final weeks before the outbreak of World War I. 1/3 One Month in Summer. The British Foreign Office receives news of an assassination in the Balkans. 2/3 One Week in July. The German military command conspires to force the kaiser's hand. 3/3 One Long Weekend. Events in Britain reach a crescendo as Germany issues its ultimatum to Belgium. |
118 |
Imagine: The One and Only Mike Leigh (2014) #838
DOCUMENTARY
Main
105 mins. BBC. In a revealing documentary, Mike Leigh, director of Secrets & Lies, Vera Drake and Abigail's Party among many others, talks to Alan Yentob about a unique body of work and a lifelong struggle to make films on his own terms. On day one of a Mike Leigh film, there is no script, no story and the actors do not know if they will even be in the final film. It is a process that has yielded some of cinema's most celebrated performances, and Leigh's new film Mr Turner is already winning critical acclaim. Actors including Jim Broadbent, Eddie Marsan, Sally Hawkins, Lesley Manville and James Corden give fascinating insights into the director and his distinctive method of working. |
119 |
The Art of Gothic: Britain's Midnight Hour (2014) #845
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1hour episodes. BBC. Andrew Graham-Dixon explores how a group of 19th-century architects and artists spurned the modern age and turned to Britain's medieval past to create iconic works and buildings. 1/3 Liberty Diversity Depravity. How the Gothic revival came to influence popular art, architecture and literature. 2/3 The City and the Soul. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley warned of the dangers of science getting out of control. 3/3 Blood for Sale: Gothic Goes Global. How the language of Gothic increasingly came to encapsulate the 20th century's horrors. |
120 |
Ireland's Lost Babies (2014) #850
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. In 2013 the movie Philomena was shown in cinemas across the world and earned four Oscar nominations. The film was based on the true story of Philomena Lee, who was forced by the Catholic Church to give up her illegitimate son for adoption, and detailed her journey with journalist Martin Sixsmith to find her child 50 years later. In the weeks and months after the film went out, Martin was contacted by other mothers who had their own stories to tell. Now, Martin Sixsmith goes on a journey to investigate the Irish Catholic Church's role in an adoption trade which saw thousands of illegitimate children taken from their mothers and sent abroad, often with donations to the Church flowing in the other direction. In Ireland and in America, Martin hears the moving stories of the parents and children whose lives were changed forever and discovers evidence that prospective parents were not properly vetted - sometimes with tragic consequences. |