Sunday 11th
BBC2 - Wild Wales - 3-part series - "Iolo Williams shares his passion for Welsh wildlife. Filmed over a year, with stunning aerial and wildlife photography, the first episode features the beautiful south of Wales.
Iolo starts in Pembrokeshire with red deer, seals and a rare sighting of red squirrels. In the Brecon Beacons he discovers spectacular waterfalls, amazing cave structures and bats hiding in dungeons, and also nesting hobbies, goshawks and some stunning birds in Glamorgan and Gwent."
Monday 12th
BBC1 - Panorama: Orphans of Haiti - "Six months to the day when a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, Raphael Rowe returns to uncover what has happened to the country's orphaned and abandoned children.
There are more than four hundred thousand children now living in Haiti's orphanages. Many of those rescued from the rubble are still unidentified or have simply been abandoned by their parents.
Panorama meets others still living on the streets - vulnerable to child traffickers - and asks whether meeting the demand for them to be adopted in other countries, especially America, is really the best answer."
Channel 4 - Dispatches: Africa's Last Taboo - "Gay people in Africa are facing increased persecution in a continent where two thirds of countries retain laws against homosexuals.
Award-winning filmmaker Sorious Samura investigates for Dispatches what it is like to be a gay person in Africa, discovering shocking levels of prejudice and hate, driven by governments, religious organisations and communities.
Samura looks at the impact extreme homophobia is having on gay people's lives, tracking down the victims of a recent mob attack in Kenya, speaking to gay men who have spent time in prison for their sexuality and meeting African homosexuals who are often forced into secret lives.
He discovers that AIDS is spreading at an alarming rate among gay men in Africa who are not being given vital sex education and health care by governments that are opposed to homosexuality. As a result, many gay men are dying needlessly.
Samura goes in search of what is driving homophobia in Africa, finding Muslims and Christians working closely together to target homosexuals and visiting American pastors helping to spread anti-gay sentiment.
Dispatches shows that homosexuality is not an African freedom, revealing a major, but little reported, human rights issue, in a continent where millions of gay people live in constant fear of rejection by their communities, of physical and verbal abuse, and even imprisonment."
BBC4 - Rich Hall's Dirty South - "Rich Hall sets his keen eye and acerbic wit on his homeland once again as he sifts truth from fiction in Hollywood's version of the southern states of the USA. Using specially shot interviews and featuring archive from classic movies such as Gone With The Wind, A Streetcar Named Desire and Deliverance, Rich discovers a South that is about so much more than just rednecks, racism and hillbillies. Rich Hall asserts the American South's claim to being the birthplace of music that makes you want to dance."
Tuesday 13th
BBC1 - Between Life and Death - "Provocative documentary following the doctors who can now interrupt, and even reverse, the process of death. Filmed over six months in the country's leading brain injury unit (Addenbooke's Hospital, Cambridge), it follows the journey of a man who, by only moving his eyes, is eventually asked if he wants to live or die. Two other families are also plunged into the most ethically difficult decision-making in modern medicine."
BBC4 - John Sergeant on Tracks of Empire - 2-parts - "John Sergeant embarks on a unique 3,000 mile journey through the history of the greatest legacy the British left to India - its rail network. The biggest in Asia, it runs on 40,000 miles of track and reaches every corner of the subcontinent. Proposed in 1853 by Governor General Lord Dalhousie, it would become the biggest engineering project of its time and instrumental in every chapter of India's history.
Starting in Kolkata, Sergeant traverses India from east to west, travels through turbulent Bihar state, visits the Victorian railway town of Jamalpur, and discovers why the construction of the Dufferin Bridge at Varanasi resulted in Victorian technology and ingenuity clashing with ancient religion, before ending his journey at the border with Pakistan.
Even though Mahatma Gandhi denounced the railways as evil, Sergeant reveals how it became a civil engineering triumph that united the country and played a crucial role when India became independent in 1947."
Thursday 15th
BBC2 - Victorian Pharmacy - 4-parts - "Historical observational documentary series in which historian Ruth Goodman, Professor Nick Barber and PhD student Tom Quick recreate an authentic 19th-century pharmacy. The team discover a world where traditional remedies, such as leeches, oil of earthworm and potions laced with cannabis and opium, held sway. After sampling some of the old ways, the team venture into new discoveries, such as the Malvern water cure, the bronchial kettle and the invention of Indian tonic water."
BBC4 - Storyville: The Baby and the Buddha - "Nati Baratz's documentary chronicles a former disciple's search for his reincarnated Tibetan master.
After 26 years of isolated meditation in a mountain cave, Lama Konchog became one of the greatest Tibetan masters of our time. When he passed away in 2001 at 84, the Dalai Lama instructed his shy, devoted disciple Tenzin Zopa to search for his master's reincarnation. This 'unmistaken child' must be found within four years, before it becomes too difficult to remove him from his parents' care.
Tenzin entered the service of Lama Konchog at the age of seven, at his own request, and was with his master continuously for 21 years. The loss of his teacher leaves Tenzin bereft and he is further unsettled by the unexpected responsibility of carrying out the highly secretive search for his spiritual father, who is now expected to be embodied in a little boy and may be anywhere in the world.
His search crosses countries, passing through mountains and villages that appear to have remained unchanged for hundreds of years. Assisted by astrology, signs from dreams and the whispers of villagers, Tenzin travels by helicopter, mule and foot. When he comes upon an apparent contender, the documentary accompanies Tenzin and his young charge through the mysterious procedures that may confirm the reincarnation.
While the film brings to light a rarely seen aspect of the Buddhist faith, the true revelation is Tenzin's journey as a man. We come to know him as modest and shy, but with an impish sense of humour. He appears to be of another time and place, yet lives profoundly in the present. Alone on his quest, he is only able to share his thoughts and feelings with filmmaker Baratz. Tenzin's simple honesty and unselfconsciousness make the viewer a privileged partner in his passage."
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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.
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