Off-air recordings for week 18-24 September 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.*

Saturday 18th

Channel 4 - Stephen Hawking's Universe - 3-parts - "Professor Hawking considers one of the most important mysteries facing humankind: the possibility of intelligent alien life.
He examines the chances of other beings in a universe of countless billions of stars and wonders how they might look and what amazing knowledge - and terrifying technology - they could possess. And he ponders what might happen if aliens ever visited Earth: would they come in peace or would the outcome be much as when Columbus landed in America?"

Sunday 19th

BBC4 - Waiting For Work - "Waiting for Work was a documentary written and directed by Jack Ashley. Politically passionate and one of the first working class reporters at the BBC, he wanted to show the suffering caused by high unemployment. The documentary caused a storm."

BBC4 - Play For Today: The Blackstuff - "Classic early 1980s drama about a Merseyside tarmac gang away on a contract on Teesside. Without the boss there's a chance for some local diversion with the natives while keeping up the spirit of free enterprise, preferably on the firm's time."

Monday 20th

BBC2 - Unequal Opportunities with John Humphrys - "John Humphrys examines the reasons behind the stark educational attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils, which has stubbornly refused to narrow, despite the pledge made by successive governments to put education at the top of the political agenda.
This attainment gap is a problem that starts very early on, with experts saying that even before turning two, poor children have already fallen significantly behind in development. And when they reach school age, they are on average a year behind; by 14 two years behind; and by 16 half as likely to get five good GCSEs.
John travels the country visiting schools and meeting parents, teachers, pupils, tutors and researchers. He hears from teachers committed to finding ways to improve things and head teachers who have managed to turn failing schools around.
But he also uncovers the battles that exist for the best available education and how an increasing number of parents are using private tutoring companies to top up their children's education. Lee Elliott-Major of The Sutton Trust tells how research still suggests that the overwhelming factor in who does well in school depends on who the parents are, and John hears how parental choice for schools and the option for private education often exaggerate the social divide between the rich and the poor.
In Unequal Opportunities, John reflects on his own background and explores the dilemmas faced by parents wanting the best education for their children.
The film is part of BBC Two's School Season on air throughout September encompassing a range of programmes from documentary to drama to debate and at bbc.co.uk/schoolseason."

BBC4 - Storyville: The Photographer - "In 1987, colour slides were found in a second hand book store in Vienna which turned out to be a collections of photographs taken in the Lodz ghetto by the Nazis' chief accountant. Walter Genewein boosted productivity in the ghetto while keeping costs down, a policy which led to the Lodz ghetto surviving much longer than any other in Poland. He recorded what he considered to be the subhuman aspect of the Jewish workers and he was concerned only with the technical quality of his photos.
Director Dariusz Jablonski's prize-winning film uses the photographs in a different way. He recreates for us the suffering of inmates, giving a compassionate picture of that it was like to be trapped in the ghetto."

Tuesday 21st

BBC4 - Spitfire Women - "As part of a special season marking the 70th anniversary of The Battle Of Britain, Spitfire Women tells the story of the remarkable women who, against all odds, flew planes for the Air Transport Auxiliary from 1939 to the end of the Second World War.
Using archive footage and testimonies from the surviving members and their relatives, Spitfire Women captures the drama, danger and significance of the story of these unsung heroines, who came from across the world to fight for Britain but whose tales of courage and determination remain largely unrecognised. "

BBC1 - Lost Land of the Tiger - 3-parts - "Documentary series following a dramatic expedition searching for tigers hidden in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan.
With tigers heading for extinction, an international team of big cat experts and wildlife filmmakers are given unique access to the jungles and mountains of Bhutan for what could be the last chance to save this magnificent animal.
Explorer Steve Backshall is joined by sniffer dog Bruiser; together, they hunt for tigers through the dense forest undergrowth. High in the mountains, wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan drives himself to exhaustion tracking tigers that seem as elusive as the yeti. And in a jungle base camp, scientist George McGavin organises a firefly disco, while camerawoman Justine Evans is stuck at the top of a tree during a tropical lightning storm.
For the final team member, big cat biologist Alan Rabinowitz, time to save the tiger is running out, as he has been diagnosed with incurable leukaemia. Alan bugs the forest with remote cameras to capture whatever secretive creatures are lurking there, but ultimately he needs to find tigers if his ambitious plan to protect them across the Himalayas is to succeed.
We follow the expedition every emotional step of the way as they strive to find evidence that could help to bring wild tigers back from the brink of extinction and safeguard their future."

BBC4 - The End of God? A Horizon Guide to Science and Religion - "As the Pope ends his visit to Britain, historian Dr Thomas Dixon delves into the BBC's archive to explore the age-old conflict between religion and science. From the creationists of America to the physicists of the Large Hadron Collider, he traces the expansion of scientific knowledge and asks whether there is still room for God in the modern world."

BBC4 - The Lost Gospels - "Documentary presented by Anglican priest Pete Owen Jones which explores the huge number of ancient Christian texts that didn't make it into the New Testament. Shocking and challenging, these were works in which Jesus didn't die, took revenge on his enemies and kissed Mary Magdalene on the mouth - a Jesus unrecognisable from that found in the traditional books of the New Testament.
Pete travels through Egypt and the former Roman Empire looking at the emerging evidence of a Christian world that's very different to the one we know, and discovers that aside from the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, there were over seventy gospels, acts, letters and apocalypses, all circulating in the early Church.
Through these lost Gospels, Pete reconstructs the intense intellectual and political struggles for orthodoxy that was fought in the early centuries of Christianity, a battle involving different Christian sects, each convinced that their gospels were true and sacred.
The worldwide success of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code sparked new interest, as well as wild and misguided speculation about the origins of the Christian faith. Owen Jones sets out the context in which heretical texts like the Gospel of Mary emerged. He also strikes a cautionary note - if these lost gospels had been allowed to flourish, Christianity may well have faced an uncertain future, or perhaps not survived at all."

Wednesday 22nd

BBC4 - Michael Wood's Story of England - 6-part series - "Groundbreaking series in which Michael Wood tells the story of one place throughout the whole of English history. The village is Kibworth in Leicestershire in the heart of England - a place that lived through the Black Death, the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution and was even bombed in World War Two.
With the help of the local people and using archaeology, landscape, language and DNA, Michael uncovers the lost history of the first thousand years of the village, featuring a Roman villa, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings and graphic evidence of life on the eve of the Norman Conquest."

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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.