Off-air recordings for weeks 19 December 2009 -1 January 2010

Please email Rich Deakin <rdeakin@glos.ac.uk> or <fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk> if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*

Tuesday 22nd

More 4 - Encounters at the End of the World - "Showing in the True Stories strand, Werner Herzog's Oscar-nominated film finds the legendary director in Antarctica.
At McMurdo Research station he meets the scientists, researchers and workers who inhabit a remote, almost magical world. He follows both the divers below the ice and the vulcanologists into the mouths of active volcanoes but he also finds the eccentrics who make up this diverse community.
Among them are a former banker who now drives a huge truck, a plumber who claims to be descended from the Aztec kings and a female researcher whose turn at the camp's talent show is to fold herself into a suitcase.
Beautifully shot, with jaw-dropping underwater sequences, Encounters... is Herzog at his observational best."

Saturday 26th

BBC 2 - Hamlet - "Actor David Tennant has signed up to reprise his role as Hamlet for BBC Two.
The Doctor Who star recently completed a stint playing the prince on stage as part of a Royal Shakespeare Company production.
He will be joined by all of the key members of its original cast, including Star Trek actor Patrick Stewart, who plays Claudius.
Last week Tennant finished filming his farewell Doctor Who episodes, which will be shown later this year.
He announced he was leaving the popular BBC show last year at the National Television Awards.
BBC Two controller Janice Hadlow said the 180-minute screen production of Hamlet was "a wonderful opportunity... to bring one of the great stage successes of last year to a wider audience".

Sunday 27th

Channel 4 - Tsunami: Where Was God? - "Taking as his subject the Indian Ocean tsunami of Christmas 2004, former Dominican Friar Mark Dowd confronts a question that has troubled religious thinkers for centuries: how can belief in a benevolent God be reconciled with natural disaster?
In an attempt to answer this thorniest of questions, Dowd sets off on a deeply personal journey to the region to meet people affected, as well as speaking to leading figures from some of the region's religions, to ask where 2004's events leave faith in God. The question of how to reconcile a loving God with human suffering plagued Dowd in his own theological studies, but the tsunami's deadly force - as well as subsequent events in Pakistan and New Orleans - demands an answer even more forcefully.
Travelling through the disaster zones in Thailand, India and Indonesia, Dowd meets many people who lost their entire families. How can faith survive such an immense test?
He talks to leading Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians to explore theological explanations for Man's suffering. Many people believe that these events are simply the will of God, Karma or divine retribution.
But Mark wants to find an answer that satisfies deeper spiritual questions. He turns to leading theologians and religious thinkers meeting at the Vatican Observatory for enlightenment and meets the arch-sceptic Professor Richard Dawkins."

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* This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.

Off-air recordings for week 12-18 December 2009

Please email Rich Deakin <rdeakin@glos.ac.uk> or <fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk> if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*

Saturday 12th

More 4 - To be Or Not To Be... In Shakespeare - "Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Antony Sher, Juliet Stevenson and David Tennant romp through the agonies and ecstasies of devoting vast swathes of their lives to the Bard."

Monday 14th

BBC 4 - The Age of Stupid - "The Age of Stupid is a 2008 film by Director Franny Armstrong (McLibel, Drowned Out) and first-time producer Lizzie Gillett. It is a co-production between Franny's company Spanner Films and Executive Producer John Battsek's (One Day In September) company Passion Pictures.
Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated future world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?"

Tuesday 15th

BBC 4 - The Environment Debate - "A panel of invited guests discuss the issues surrounding Fanny Armstrong's film The Age of Stupid, which explores the effects of climate change."

Wednesday 16th

More 4 - True Stories: The Last American Freak Show - "The True Stories series continues with Richard Butchins' extraordinary film is a road trip with a difference. He follows the journey of a self-described travelling Freak Show through America, with 'exhibits' such as The Lobster Girl, The Half Woman, Dame Demure and The Elephant Man.
But what makes them stand out from the old carnival shows is that they perform by choice, flaunting their disabilities in a united front against the world, as they explore the nature of society's relationship with 'freaks'. "

More 4 - The Year The Earth Went Wild - "2005 saw a succession of natural disasters. The Sumatran earthquake on Boxing Day 2004 lasted eight minutes and measured 9.3 on the Richter scale. The earthquake spawned a tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean and killed more than 300,000 people. There were also floods in Mumbai and Central Europe, and forest fires in Portugal. On the other side of the Atlantic, 2005 saw the most destructive hurricane season since records began with Hurricane Katrina. And even Britain experienced extremes in weather conditions, including a tornado in Birmingham that caused more than £25 million worth of damage. Using extraordinary footage captured at the time and eye-witness accounts, The Year the Earth Went Wild explores these many incredible events and asks the experts: was this just an unlucky year, or does 2005's litany of disasters signify a real shift in our planet's behaviour?"

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* This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.

Off-air recordings for week 5-7 December 2009

Please email Rich Deakin <rdeakin@glos.ac.uk> or <fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk> if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*

Monday 7th

BBC Radio 4 - Policing Britain - new 3-part series - "Andy Hayman, former assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, examines the challenges facing policing in Britain today.
When Andy Hayman left the Metropolitan Police in 2008 he was assistant commissioner, Special Operations, in overall charge of counter-terrorism. He had to deal with the suicide bomb attacks on London and the tragedy of the de Menezes shooting. Andy's 30-year career started straight out of school with the police in Essex and took him to the position of chief constable of Norfolk. In this series he takes a critical look at the challenges facing the police service in Britain today. He goes back on the beat and talks to former colleagues and those who work with the police at every level to ask the question, 'Do we have the policing we need in Britain today?'"

Channel 4 - Man On Earth - new 4-part series - "Tony Robinson explores how a small group of our earliest African ancestors were rescued from extinction by the last great global warming 130,000 years ago. The barren landscape surrounding the oases in which they lived was transformed to lush savannah, enabling them to traverse the continent and eventually make it to Europe.
As temperatures rose, so they would also later fall: in the Russia steppes Dr Joy Singarayer finds out how the European Homo Sapiens adapted to survive the last great Ice Age.
But not all humans coped so well. In Gibraltar, Tony finds the last resting place of our Neanderthal 'cousins'. Lacking our 'social brains', which enabled us to trade and get help from outsiders, the Neanderthals starved, dying out in lonely communities, and even resorting to cannibalism."

Tuesday 8th

BBC 4 - Hop, Skip & Jump: The Story of Children's Play - "Two-part series which tells the story of children's outdoor games in 20th-century Britain begins by looking at British children at play between the 1900s and the mid-1950s.
It is a journey into a secret world of adventure and imagination that blossomed in the nation's streets, back alleys and playgrounds. The children's songs and games were passed down from one generation to the next and remain an abiding memory for most grown-ups. Playing on the streets was the defining feature of a working class childhood.
But the freedom they enjoyed meant they often got into trouble; none more so than the tribal gangs of boys who named themselves after the places where they lived. The programme highlights how children's play varied between city and country, between the different social classes and between boys and girls."

Wednesday 9th

BBC 2 - Horizon: How Many People Can Live On Planet Earth? - "In a Horizon special, naturalist Sir David Attenborough investigates whether the world is heading for a population crisis.
In his lengthy career, Sir David has watched the human population more than double from 2.5 billion in 1950 to nearly seven billion. He reflects on the profound effects of this rapid growth, both on humans and the environment. While much of the projected growth in human population is likely to come from the developing world, it is the lifestyle enjoyed by many in the West that has the most impact on the planet. Some experts claim that in the UK consumers use as much as 2.5 times their fair share of the Earth's resources.
Sir David examines whether it is the duty of individuals to commit not only to smaller families, but change the way they live for the sake of humanity and planet Earth."

BBC 1 - Hot Planet - "Professors Iain Stewart and Professor Kathy Sykes take a timely look at global warming ahead of the Copenhagen summit, exploring the world's leading climate scientists' vision of the planet's future.
Scientists predict that if global temperatures continue to rise at their current rate, Earth will be one degree warmer within 10 years, two degrees warmer within the next 40 years and three degrees or more warmer before the end of the century. If the Earth's temperature increases to three degrees warmer than the average pre-industrial temperature, the impact on the planet will be catastrophic. Across the Earth, ways of life could be lost forever as climate change accelerates out of control. This isn't inevitable, however: climate change is not yet irreversible.
Ingenious technology and science is currently being devised, advanced and tested around the world which could offer solutions for a sustainable future. The question that remains is, can the world embrace and implement them on a large enough scale within an effective timeline? If widespread damage to human societies and ecosystems is to be prevented, global temperature rise must be slowed and eventually reversed.
Hot Planet offers an accurate visual prediction of the planet's future, based on the findings of over 4,000 climate scientists."

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* This applies to staff members at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.