| 41 |
Yesterday (2019) #1256
FILM
Main
Directed by Danny Boyle. With Himesh Patel, Lily James, Sophia Di Martino, Ellise Chappell. A struggling musician realizes he's the only person on Earth who can remember The Beatles after waking up in an alternate timeline where they never existed. |
| 42 |
The Fall of the Berlin Wall with John Simpson (2019) #1268
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. It’s said that journalists write the first draft of history. To mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor and longest-serving correspondent, goes back to his reports on what he believes is the most important story he ever covered – the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Back in 1989, John thought this event would change the world for the better, forever. But history has not turned out quite the way he expected. Russia is yet again an enemy of the West, and the Cold War battle that built the Berlin Wall has been replaced with other destabilising global power struggles - even more dangerous and much harder to understand. Three decades on, John wonders if he was wrong to have been so optimistic. Using the anniversary as an opportunity to re-examine how he told the story, John watches the BBC’s extensive archive and talks with historians and other experts to try and understand just how accurate his reporting was. At the heart of the documentary is an intense and personal interview with John. He begins by describing how he grew up in the shadow of the Cold War battle between the capitalist West and the communist East, and how he - like everyone else - believed that this global stand-off would continue for many more decades, ending sooner or later in nuclear war. On 9 November 1989, John, like the rest of the world, in shock at reports that the Berlin Wall’s checkpoints had been opened up, rushed to Berlin to cover the incredible story. With great emotion, John recalls his happiness as he reported from in front of the Wall as Berlin’s people tore it down, until his broadcast was cut off midway by technical failure – giving him by far the most humiliating moment of his long career. After the technical meltdown, John describes how he walked into the crowd feeling utterly depressed. But, surrounded by the thousands of people who had streamed through the checkpoints from East Berlin, untouched by the once trigger-happy border guards and greeted with delight by West Berliners, he could barely believe his own eyes and found himself overwhelmed with joy. So, why has the legacy of the Wall not turned out the way John hoped and expected? He examines why he did not predict that the pace of change across Europe would lead to the terrible war in Yugoslavia, nor that Russia, with Vladimir Putin – a former KGB agent – as its president, would find a new guise in which to become a bitter enemy of the West. John also reflects on the terrifying uncertainty of global politics today, which has left him with a certain nostalgia for the decades of the Cold War – a period that was certainly frightening, but arguably less so than the uncertainty and complexity of global politics that we live with today. |
| 43 |
Tolkien (2019) #1276
FILM
Main
Directed by Dome Karukoski. With Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Derek Jacobi. The formative years of the orphaned author J.R.R. Tolkien as he finds friendship, love and artistic inspiration among a group of fellow outcasts at school. |
| 44 |
National Theatre Live: A Midsummer Night's Dream (2019) #1287
FILM
Main
Directed by Nicholas Hytner. With Paul Adeyefa, Hammed Animashaun, Charlotte Atkinson, Oliver Chris. Young lovers, a troupe of actors, and fairies have romantic encounters in the forest on summer's night. |
| 45 |
Lucy Worsley's Christmas Carol Odyssey (2019) #1340
DOCUMENTARY-MUSIC
Main
1 hour. BBC. In this festive treat featuring the Kingdom Choir and Hampton Court Choir, Lucy Worsley reveals that there’s much more to our best-loved carols than meets the eye. She reveals how their stories add up to a special kind of history of Christmas itself. In the ancient past, the wassail, a pagan fertility ritual, gave us door-to-door carol singing. Wassailing was also an integral part of an older midwinter festival that was adopted by Christianity when it came to Britain, and was rebranded as ‘Christmas’. Religion, however, soon turned its back on carols. They were far too frivolous for the Puritans, who wanted to ban Christmas altogether. French Catholics on the other hand didn’t mind fun and frolics, and Lucy crosses the channel to learn a French renaissance jig, written by a dancing priest in the 16th century. The tune she dances to went on to become the carol Ding Dong Merrily on High in the 19th century. In strict Protestant Britain, the carol survived outside the Church and new ones turned up in some surprising places. Lucy visits the British Library, where she discovers an 18th-century children’s book that contains a little memory game called The Twelve Days of Christmas. Christmas carols could also be politically dangerous and subversive. British Catholics were oppressed for generations after the Reformation, but one Catholic scribe, John Francis Wade, hid a coded message of support for a Jacobite rebellion in the carol O Come All Ye Faithful. Eventually, the Church of England couldn’t resist the power of the carol, and finally opened its doors to all of them, thanks to a chance pairing of words and music in Hark the Herald Angels Sing, performed in the programme by the renowned gospel ensemble, The Kingdom Choir. In the 20th century, Ralph Vaughan Williams’s passion for English folk music took him to the villages of Surrey. Here, Lucy meets a folk singer who tells the tale of an elderly farm labourer, Henry Garman, who sang a tune for Vaughan Williams, which became O Little Town of Bethlehem. Finally, in the snowy Austrian Alps, Lucy discovers the simple story of a young parish priest with a poem in search of a tune. When he found one, the result was Silent Night. During the First World War, this simple carol would become a hymn for peace during the famous Christmas truce of 1914. Silent Night also reminds us that carols are, and have always been, ‘popular music’, music for the people, fulfilling an enduring need to celebrate and sing together at Christmas. |
| 46 |
Greed (2019) #1343
FILM
Main
Directed by Michael Winterbottom. With Caroline Flack, Steve Coogan, David Mitchell, Isla Fisher. Satire about the world of the super-rich. Thought (by me at least) to be about Sir Philip Nigel Ross Green (born 15 March 1952) - the British businessman who is the chairman of Arcadia Group, a retail company that includes Topshop, Topman, Wallis, Evans, Burton, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins and Outfit. The defunct BHS chain was also part of the group. |
| 47 |
Pinocchio (2019) #1364
FILM
Main
Directed by Matteo Garrone. With Federico Ielapi, Roberto Benigni, Rocco Papaleo, Massimo Ceccherini. Old woodcarver Geppetto's puppet creation, Pinocchio, magically comes to life with dreams of becoming a real boy. Easily led astray, Pinocchio tumbles from one misadventure to another as he is tricked, kidnapped and chased by bandits. Literary Analysis Some literary analysts have described Pinocchio as an epic hero. Like many Western literary heroes, such as Odysseus, Pinocchio descends into hell; he also experiences rebirth through metamorphosis, a common motif in fantasy literature. Before writing Pinocchio, Collodi wrote a number of didactic children's stories for the then-recently unified Italy, including a series about an unruly boy who undergoes humiliating experiences while traveling the country, titled Viaggio per l'Italia di Giannettino ('Little Johnny's voyage through Italy'). Throughout Pinocchio, Collodi chastises Pinocchio for his lack of moral fiber and his persistent rejection of responsibility and desire for fun. The structure of the story of Pinocchio follows that of the folktales of peasants who venture out into the world but are naïvely unprepared for what they find, and get into ridiculous situations. At the time of the writing of the book (1883), this was a serious problem, arising partly from the industrialization of Italy, which led to a growing need for reliable labour in the cities; the problem was exacerbated by similar, more or less simultaneous, demands for labour in the industrialization of other countries. One major effect was the emigration of much of the Italian peasantry to cities and to foreign countries such as the United States. The main imperatives demanded of Pinocchio are to work, be good, and study. And in the end Pinocchio's willingness to provide for his father and devote himself to these things transforms him into a real boy with modern comforts. |
| 48 |
Military Wives (2019) #1386
FILM
Main
Military Wives: Directed by Peter Cattaneo. With Kristin Scott Thomas, Sharon Horgan, Emma Lowndes, Gaby French. With their partners away serving in Afghanistan, a group of women on the home front form a choir and quickly find themselves at the center of a media sensation and global movement |
| 49 |
Sorry We Missed You (2019) #1398
FILM
Main
Sorry We Missed You: Directed by Ken Loach. With Kris Hitchen, Debbie Honeywood, Rhys Mcgowan, Katie Proctor. Hoping that self-employment through gig economy can solve their financial woes, a hard-up UK delivery driver and his wife struggling to raise a family end up trapped in the vicious circle of this modern-day form of labour exploitation |
| 50 |
Art, Passion & Power: The Story of the Royal Collection (2018) #1080
DOCUMENTARY
Special
4x1 hour. BBC. In a major new series, Andrew Graham-Dixon explores the history of the Royal Collection, one of the largest and most important art collections in the world, built up over 500 years. 1/4 Dangerous Magic.How art was used by Henry VIII and Charles I, the great founders of the Royal Collection. 2/4 Paradise Regained. The story of Royal Collection's remarkable resurrection under Charles II and George III. 3/4 Palaces and Pleasuredomes. Exploring George IV's extravagant taste and Victoria and Albert's shared love of art. 4/4 Modern Times. How art was used to steady the ship of British monarchy through an uncertain age. |
| 51 |
Pilgrimage: The Road to Santiago (2018) #1088
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1 hour. BBC. Seven celebrities tackle a medieval pilgrimage to see whether it still has relevance today. cf Pilgrimage of Compostela - Camino. 1/3 Seven celebrities arrive in Biarritz and make their way to the start of their pilgrimage. 2/3 The celebrity pilgrims leave a hostel in solidarity with Heather when she senses racism. 3/3 The group are now in Galicia, walking the last 100km to Santiago. |
| 52 |
Great British Railway Journeys: York to Frizinghall (2018) #1102
DOCUMENTARY
Main
30 mins. BBC. Series 9. Armed with his Edwardian Bradshaw's guide, Michael Portillo conducts important research in an historic tea room, built by an Edwardian immigrant to the city of York. Research of a more sombre kind leads Michael to the roots of our modern welfare state in the work of an early 20th-century Quaker investigator, whose family manufactured chocolate. Next stop is Leeds, where Michael discovers the city's textile heritage, which relied in Edwardian times on a group of skilled Jewish immigrants to take it forward. Michael learns how some of the big names built their empires in Leeds and measures up to a footballing legend. At Bradford Grammar School, Michael hears the story of a talented Edwardian student who became a famous composer and enjoys one of his works, sung by a music pupil of today. |
| 53 |
Cunk on Britain (2018) #1104
COMEDY
Main
5x30 min. BBC. 1/5 Philomena Cunk explores the Big Bang and interviews Robert Peston about British politics. 2/5 Philomena's odyssey takes her from King Henry VIII to Lord Horatio Nelson. 3/5 Philomena examines the Victorians and is joined by Chris Packham. 4/5 Philomena examines the early 20th century, with two world wars but no world cup. 5/5 The Arse End of History. In the final episode, Cunk has made it to the 21st century and Brexit. |
| 54 |
The Jeremy Thorpe Scandal (2018) #1108
DOCUMENTARY
Special
1 hour. BBC. In 1979, Panorama reporter Tom Mangold led an investigation into the trial of Jeremy Thorpe and others for the alleged conspiracy to kill Thorpe's former lover, Norman Scott. Convinced that the former Liberal Party leader would be found guilty, a special post-trial programme was prepared. This was scrapped, however, when the jury returned its verdicts of not guilty for all defendants, and the programme has remained unseen for almost 40 years. Edited and updated with new information about a fresh 2017 police inquiry into the case, Tom Mangold finally presents his story about how powerful political forces tried to protect Thorpe. The programme features revealing interviews from 1979 with Norman Scott, chief prosecution witness Peter Bessell and the alleged hitman Andrew 'Gino' Newton. |
| 55 |
Suffragettes with Lucy Worsley (2018) #1110
DOCUMENTARY
Main
90mins. BBC. 2018 marks 100 years since the first women over the age of 30, who owned property, were allowed to vote in the UK. The fight for the vote was about much more than just the Pankhurst family or Emily Davidson's fateful collision with the king's horse. In this film, Lucy is at the heart of the drama, alongside a group of less well known, but equally astonishing, young working-class suffragettes who decided to go against every rule and expectation that Edwardian society had about them. Lucy explores the actions of these women as their campaign becomes more and more dangerous, while their own words are delivered in simple but strikingly emotive pieces of dramatised testimony. Lucy also tells this story from a range of iconic original locations, from the Houses of Parliament and 10 Downing Street to the Savoy Hotel, and has access to an amazing range of artefacts, from hunger-striking medals to defused bombs and private letters between the government and the press. In this Edwardian history drama, Lucy and her group of suffragettes from the Women's Social Political Union reveal what life was like for these young women, as she follows the trail of increasingly illegal and dangerous acts they would end up committing. For while they would start with peaceful protests, but they would go from to obstruction to vandalism and finally to arson and bomb making. Lucy investigates what drove them to break the law, to the prison conditions they experienced, including violent force feedings and the subsequent radicalisation of these women that occurred, driving them to more and more extreme actions. Lucy looks at the ways in which the press responded to the suffragettes and their own use of PR and branding to counteract the negative portrayals - from WSPU postcards to pennants and exhibitions. The decisive and largely negative role that members of Parliament played is unpacked, as they would throw out numerous attempts to give women the vote. The role of the police is explored, both in the ways in which the suffragettes' demonstrations were handled and the covert and sometimes violent tactics that were used against them. As the actions of the suffragettes became increasingly extreme, it would take a world-changing event to stop their campaign in its tracks and allow some form of equality at the ballot box. |
| 56 |
Versailles (2018) #1114
TV DRAMA
Main
1 hour. BBC. The Wheel of Fortune Versailles, Series 3 Episode 6 of 10 Louis hopes diplomacy will hide his duplicity as he works to undermine Leopold while winning over severe cardinal Leto. Marchal helps Philippe learn a family secret, and is troubled by a command from the king. |
| 57 |
Bodyguard (2018) #1135
TV DRAMA
Special
5x1hour + 1x75mins. BBC. Series 1 A contemporary thriller featuring the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch of London's Metropolitan Police Service. 1 Drama about a bodyguard who's had a history in Afghanistan who, after rescuing a train from a suicide terrorist bomber, is assigned to protect the home secretary. 2 With the UK terror threat level raised to severe, Home Secretary Montague holds secret meetings with the Director General of the Security Service, side-stepping her own Minister for Counter Terrorism and the Police. Specialist Protection Officer Budd is on high alert as Secretary Montague's hard-line stance on national security propels her further into the public eye. With his home life becoming more difficult, it appears as if Budd's natural animosity towards the Home Secretary is beginning to fade. 3 As the capital shudders in the wake of the recent attacks, Specialist Protection Officer PS David Budd is under more pressure than ever to keep the Home Secretary Julia Montague safe. 4 The events of the night before play out for the Home Secretary Julia Montague and her Specialist Protection Officer David Budd. 5 David's theories about a conspiracy at the heart of government look increasingly plausible. But concerns about David's psychological health are raised, and allegations about his and Julia's professional conduct come to light. 6 Principal Protection Officer David Budd (Richard Madden) has made a major breakthrough in the investigation into the attack on the Home Secretary, but his enquiries have put him in mortal danger. With the clock ticking and no-one left who believes him, David attempts to prove his innocence. But the evidence against him begins to stack up. |
| 58 |
Black Earth Rising (2018) #1144
TV DRAMA
Special
With Michaela Coel, John Goodman, Noma Dumezweni, Lucian Msamati. Kate Ashby was rescued as a child from the Rwandan genocide by her renowned international lawyer adopted mother Eve. Living in London and working for barrister Michael Ennis, Kate's mother takes on a case involving an African militia leader which will upend both their lives forever. 8x1 hour episodes. BBC. 1/8 In Other News: British citizen Kate Ashby finds the shadow of her Rwandan past impossible to escape. 2/8 Looking at the Past: A shocking incident in the Hague throws Kate into a new investigation. 3/8 A Ghost in Name: Facing down personal threats, Kate works with Michael to defend Alice Munezero. 4/8 A Bowl of Cornflakes: A notorious war criminal appears in the UK, creating tensions between Kate and Michael. 5/8 The Eyes of the Devil: Alienated from Michael, Kate considers helping the Rwandans bring Ganimana to justice. 6/8 The Game's True Nature: Kate risks her life to find a key file prepared by her mother years earlier. 7/8 Double Bogey on the Ninth: As Michael works to expose a crime, Kate learns the truth about her own history. 8/8 The Forgiving Earth: Kate travels alone to Africa seeking the final truths about her personal history. |
| 59 |
Wonders of the Moon (2018) #1160
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Documentary which uses the latest, most detailed imagery to reveal the monthly life cycle of the moon. From Wales to Wyoming, Hong Kong to Croydon, the programme finds out how the moon shapes life on Earth, as well as exploring its mysterious dark side and discovering how the moon's journey around Earth delivers one of nature's most awe-inspiring events - a total solar eclipse. And at the end of a remarkable year of lunar activity, we find out why so many supermoons have been lighting up the night sky. |
| 60 |
The Joy of Winning (2018) #1161
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. How to have a happier life and a better world all thanks to maths, in this witty, mind-expanding guide to the science of success with Hannah Fry. Following in the footsteps of BBC Four's award-winning maths films The Joy of Stats and The Joy of Data, this latest gleefully nerdy adventure sees mathematician Dr Hannah Fry unlock the essential strategies you'll need to get what you want - to win - more of the time. From how to bag a bargain dinner to how best to stop the kids arguing on a long car journey, maths can give you a winning strategy. And the same rules apply to the world's biggest problems - whether it's avoiding nuclear annihilation or tackling climate change. Deploying 'The Joys Of...' films' trademark mix of playful animation alongside both oddball demos and contributions from the world's biggest brains, Fry shows how this field of maths - known as game theory - is the essential key to help you get your way. She reveals ways to analyse any situation, and methods of calculating the consequences of getting what you want. Expect tips on taking advantage of what your opponents do, but also pleasing proof that cooperation might get you further than conflict. Fry also hails the 20th-century scientists like John von Neumann and John Nash who worked out the science of success. They may not be household names, but they transformed economics, politics, psychology and evolutionary biology in the process - and their work, Hannah demonstrates, could even be shown to prove the existence and advantage of goodness. Along the way the film reveals, amongst other things, what links the rapper Ludacris, a Kentucky sheriff, a Nobel Prize winner and doping in professional cycling. And there's an irresistible chance to revisit the most excruciatingly painful and the most genius scenes ever seen on a TV game show, as Hannah unpacks the maths behind the legendary show Golden Balls and hails Nick Corrigan, the contestant whose cunning gameplay managed to break the supposedly intractable 'Prisoner's Dilemma'. Other contributors to The Joy of Winning include European number one professional female poker player Liv Boeree, Scottish ex-pro cyclist and anti-doping campaigner (banned for 2 years in 2004 for doping) David Millar, Israeli game theory expert Dr Haim Shapira - who shows why it is sometimes rational to be irrational - and top evolutionary game theorist Professor Karl Sigmund from the University of Vienna. |
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