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 30th July
Factual Arts; Culture & the Media Format; Documentaries
The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm 3/4, Painting The People
Waldemar Januszczak continues his investigation of the Impressionists, focusing this time on the people they painted and in particular the subjects of Degas, Caillebotte and the often forgotten Impressionist women artists. The Impressionists are famous for painting landscape but they were just as determined to paint people.
Looking closely at one of Impressionism's finest painters, Edgar Degas, Waldemar reveals how he consistently challenged traditions and strove to record real life as it appeared in the city, from sculpting the contorted movements of horses in motion at the Longchamp race course in Paris to encapsulating extravagant 3D viewpoints of the ballet dancers at the Paris Opera.
Waldemar also uncovers the intoxicating haziness the pastel produced in Degas' work when visiting his supplier Pastels de Roche. He also reveals the unusual viewpoints and dramatic perspectives of Caillebotte's paintings from the Place de L'Europe and the rebellious and revolutionary art of Morisot, Bracquemond and Cassatt, three impressive female artists who were
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Monday 1st August
Documentaries
The Secret Life of Buildings
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00, 1/4
Dyckhoff explores how the design of our homes works secretly to influence our behaviour. Light, room size, layout, proportion and materials all have measurable effects on our lives. So why do we accept the smallest windows and the smallest room sizes in Europe? And what can we do about it?
Factual Arts; Culture & the Media Format; Documentaries
Great Thinkers in Their Own Words
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3, Human, All Too
SynopsisThe 20th century was a time of unprecedented change and conflict. Violence and war spread across Europe and the world, and as new technology trumped old it became possible to harm others on a previously unimaginable scale.
In this turbulent age, a new breed of thinker emerged who would examine what drives humanity. And the advent of television gave psychologists and scientists the chance to preach their ideas to the world
This programme mines the BBC archive to hear the great minds of the 20th century in their own words - the likes of Sigmund Freud, Margaret Mead, BF Skinner, Benjamin Spock and Richard Dawkins. The film also reveals some unseen gems, such as unseen footage from Panorama of the psychologist Carl Jung discussing his torturous relationship with Professor Freud.
Featuring contributions from modern-day scientists such as evolutionary biologist Professor Armand Leroi, broadcasting legend Sir David Attenborough and psychologist Oliver James, this is a unique opportunity to hear some of the most famous thinkers of our times.
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Tuesday 2nd August
Factual; Documentaries
Timeshift: All The Fun of the Fair
Timeshift explores rarely-seen images from the University of Sheffield's National Fairground Archive to ride back to the origins of the fairground. From the sideshows to the freak shows and early hand-powered rides to the arrival of steam and electricity, the story of fairs is the tale of one of our first forms of popular entertainment.
The film shows how fairgrounds often provided the only entertainment to rapidly-expanding industrial towns. It looks at how, from the 50s, the fairground was the site of youth rebellion and why we are still entranced by these travelling carnivals that arrive overnight and then vanish just as mysteriously.
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Wednesday 3rd August
Documentaries
True Stories: The Redemption of General Butt Naked
More 4, 1:00-2:50am
The Redemption of General Butt Naked confronts the contradictions of reconciliation in war-ravaged Africa, through the story of Joshua Milton Blahyi.
Blahyi - also known as General Butt Naked - used to operate as a feared and despised warlord who, by his own reckoning, was responsible for the savage slaughter of 20,000 men, women and children during the Liberian civil war, before he laid down his arms and became an evangelical preacher.
Blahyi and his army of conscript children went on the warpath wearing only shoes, believing their nakedness would magically protect them from bullets. They mowed down everyone in their path with blades or bullets, and even practised cannibalism and human sacrifice.
Since his alleged spiritual epiphany, Blahyi has poured the same manic enthusiasm that fuelled his killing sprees into impassioned sermons. But is his conversion no more than a cynical trick to escape retribution for his horrific war crimes?
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Friday 5th August
News
Panorama: Dying for a Drink
BBC1, 1:15-1:45am
Victoria is 35 and critically ill after a decade of heavy drinking. Forty-five-year-old Matthew was so sick from his alcohol abuse he needed a new liver. Brian, at 32, drank so much that he ended up living in a cave. Panorama uncovers the impact alcohol is having on a new and younger generation of problem drinkers, and asks whether the government is doing enough to stop us drinking ourselves to death.
Factual; Documentaries
Someone's Daughter, Someone's Son
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3
Last year 26 year old nurse Jane Clough was brutally murdered by her boyfriend Jonathan Vass. This film, the first in a new series, looks at the family left behind after her death and how they’re adjusting to life without Jane, but looking to the future for her daughter and campaigning for change in the legal system. The programme also speaks to police who worked on the case and a behaviour analyst to piece together why Jane’s murderer did what he did.
Jane worked in the Accident and Emergency department of Blackpool Victoria Hospital where she had close friends among her fellow nurses. Jane met ambulance technician Jonathan Vass and early in 2008 they began a whirlwind romance. But Jane’s parents were uneasy about their relationship. Her father John says: “You can have a gut feeling about somebody and there is a gut feeling that there is something that is not quite right but you can’t put your finger on it.”
Six months into their relationship the couple moved in together and Jane announced she was pregnant. But the news brought out anger in Vass and a month after her daughter’s birth in October 2009 Jane went to the police. She told them that Jonathan Vass had raped her several times including when their baby had been in the room. John Clough says: “To say I was gutted would be an understatement. It’s any father’s worst nightmare of the worst things that could happen to your daughter.”
Jonathan Vass was arrested that day. He was remanded into custody charged with nine counts of rape and violence against Jane and suspended from work at the hospital. After his arrest it was it was claimed by the CPS that Vass was still married and may have been in a relationship with yet another woman- he had been using night shifts at work as a means of living within an elaborate web of deceit.
__________________________________________________________
*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.
Tuesday 26 July 2011
Thursday 21 July 2011
Off-air recordings for week 23-29 July 2011
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 23rd July
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm, 2/4, The Great Outdoors
Waldemar Januszczak continues his investigation of the Impressionists by taking us outdoors to their most famous locations. Although Impressionist pictures often look sunny and relaxed, achieving this peaceful air was hard work. Trudging through fog, wind and rain, across treacherous coastal rocks and knee-deep snow, Waldemar shows how the famous spontaneity of the Impressionists is thoroughly misleading.
This episode visits the French riverside locations that Monet loved to paint, and where Renoir captured the bonhomie of modern life. Waldemar also introduces a number of technical and practical developments of the age which completely revolutionised Impressionist painting - the invention of portable easels; the use of hog's hair in paint brushes; as well as the introduction of the railway through France. And a scientific demonstration in a Swedish snowdrift explains just how right the Impressionists were to paint brightly coloured shadows in their winter scenes, despite being accused of 'hallucinating' at the time.
Finally, Januszczak explains Cezanne's part in the Impressionist story from his dark and challenging early work to his first rural landscapes in France, and then his departure from Paris and separation from the Impressionist gang.
_____________________________________________________
Monday 25th July
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 36/50, The Great Patriotic War
The words of Konstantin Simonov's poem 'Wait for me and I shall return,' is an anthem of loss, courage and yearning for the terrible months that followed the outbreak of war in 1941.
Untrained volunteers fought with pikes and sticks, entire divisions were wiped out, but the Red Army did not collapse as Hitler had predicted. One General reported, "It is increasingly plain we have underestimated the Russian colossus... if we destroy a dozen, the Russians present us with a dozen more." Neither did the Soviet people welcome the Germans as saviours. Some Baltic states, where the invaders were seen as allies helping to throw off the Soviet yoke, greeted German soldiers with bread and salt, but they were repaid with brutality. Martin Sixsmith visits the suburb of Kiev that witnessed the biggest single massacre of the holocaust, immortalized in Yevgeny Yevtushenko's epic poem 'Babi Yar'. A heartrending account of one woman who survived is set against music from Shostakovich's 13th Symphony that uses the words of the poem. But German casualties were mounting. As winter approached, Hitler urged his generals to capture the major Soviet cities.
By early November the exhausted Germans were within 50 miles of Moscow. 600 miles and two fifths of the Soviet population were under enemy control, but the people's determination to fight was passionate. Stalin evoked heroes of the past to inspire new Russian heroes, but Sixsmith reflects, "their motives were not always the ones the Kremlin desired: people were fighting not for Stalin, not for the revolution or the Soviet Union, but for the Russian land." In the hit song of 1942 Napolean speaks to Hitler from the grave saying 'I'll move over and you can join me down here." The Soviet Union had been facing annihilation, but it had survived.
News; Documentaries
Panorama: One Born Every 40 Seconds
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm
The UK is in the middle of a baby boom. Last year, there was one born every forty seconds - the highest number for 20 years. But reporter Shelley Jofre reveals that some parts of the UK are facing a chronic shortage of midwives, and asks if the NHS is failing to deliver the safe and high quality maternity care mothers and babies deserve.
Religion and Ethics; Documentaries
The Life of Muhammad
BBC2, 9:00-10:00, 3/3, Holy Peace
In the final episode of The Life of Muhammad, presenter Rageh Omaar continues to chart the story of The Prophet Muhammad. Drawing on the expertise and comment from some of the world's leading academics and commentators on Islam, Omaar analyses and investigates key events during the later part of his life, including the introduction of a moral code known as Sharia and the concept of Jihad. The programme also explores Muhammad's use of marriage to build alliances, and looks at the key messages included in his final sermon. In line with Islamic tradition the programme does not depict any images of the face of Muhammad, or feature any dramatic re-constructions of Muhammad's life.
Factual: Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
The Art Of Cornwall
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm
The art colony of St Ives in Cornwall became as important as Paris or London in the history of modernism during a golden creative period between the 1920s and 1960s. The dramatic lives and works of eight artists who most made this miracle possible, from Kit Wood and Alfred Wallis to Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, are featured in a documentary which offers an alternative history of the 20th century avant-garde as well as a vivid portrayal of the history and landscapes of Cornwall itself.
__________________________________________________________
Tuesday 26th July
Factual: Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
British Masters
BBC4, 3:00-4:00am, 3/3, New Jerusalem
In the decades after the Second World War, at a time when many had lost their faith in humanity, British artists turned to the great figurative painting tradition to address the biggest questions of all: what does it mean to be human and how do we create a more humane world? Such existential angst is captured in Lucien Freud's harrowing early portraits and Graham Sutherland's Pembrokeshire landscapes. Francis Bacon stared deep into his own soul to explore the human capacity for evil, while Richard Hamilton warned against the false hope of consumerism. As national pessimism gave way to a new optimism, David Hockney dared to suggest Paradise might be available to us all. But in the early 1970s, just as the world finally began to recognise the genius of Britain's painterly tradition, young artists at home turned against it.
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 37/50, Redemption Through Blood
Having retreated from Moscow, Hitler focused on capturing the oilfields of the Caucasus, penetrating farther into Russia than any western army. Stalin urged the Red Army to greater sacrifices: "we must throw back the enemy whatever the cost. Those who retreat are traitors . and must be exterminated on the spot." 150,000 soldiers were executed for cowardice.
Those who survived were sent to penal battalions "to redeem by blood their crimes against the Motherland," drawing on the deep-seated Russian belief that the individual must sacrifice himself for the good of the state. Women took the strain in industry and agriculture, overtime was obligatory, holidays suspended and the working day increased to 12 hours. Food supplies were limited; the author Fyodor Abramov wrote of "little girls with runny noses" working in the forests: "you didn't dare come back without fulfilling your quota! Not on your life! "The front needs it!"' Hitler had pledged to make Leningrad a terrifying symbol of Nazi invincibility and for 900 days the city was shelled nonstop and starved of fuel and food. One in three of the city's 2.5 million inhabitants starved to death.
Martin Sixsmith stands in the concert hall where Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, which he dedicated to "our struggle against fascism ...our coming victory over the enemy and to my native city, Leningrad..." was first performed on August 9th 1942. So many members of the orchestra had died in the siege that amateur players were brought in to fill their seats, and the brass section was given special rations to give them the strength to play. But the performance was a triumph. It was broadcast on national radio and then around the world as a symbol of the strength of Soviet resistance that would eventually defeat the Nazi menace.
Factual; Arts, Culture & the Media; Documentaries
The Camera That Changed The World
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm
The summer of 1960 was a critical moment in the history of film, when the fly-on-the-wall documentary was born. The Camera that Changed the World tells the story of the filmmakers and ingenious engineers who led this revolution by building the first hand-held cameras that followed real life as it happened. By amazing co-incidence, there were two separate groups of them - one on each side of the Atlantic.
In the US, the pioneers used their new camera to make Primary, a compelling portrait of American politics. They followed a then little known John F Kennedy as he began his long campaign for the presidency. Meanwhile, in France, another new camera was inspiring an influential experiment in documentary filmmaking. Chronique d'un Ete captures the real lives of ordinary Parisians across the summer of 1960. Both these extraordinary films smashed existing conventions as handheld cameras followed the action across public spheres into intimate and previously hidden worlds.
In The Camera that Changed the World this remarkable story is told by the pioneers themselves, some of whom, such as DA Pennebaker and Al Maysles are now filmmaking legends. Back in 1960, they were determined young revolutionaries.
Factual; Documentaries
The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon
BBC4, 10:00-11:00, 2/3, Sport and Pleasure
Series which examines the recent discovery of 800 short films from the Edwardian age. The films have now been rescued after lying hidden in a cellar for over 80 years. Restored to their original clarity, these films shot by pioneering film-makers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon now take the viewer into a lost world. Dan Cruickshank then uses the films to throw new light on Britain at work and play before the First World War.
This programme features the first ever film of Manchester United, made within weeks of the club adopting the name of what is the most famous club in the world. It reveals how new leisure time swelled the crowds at exciting sporting events, and how people's extra cash allowed them holidays and fun in Blackpool and at home for the very first time.
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Wednesday 27th July
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 38/50, Glory To Our Victorious People
Victory at Stalingrad in February 1943 turned the tide of the war. For 6 months, 2 million soldiers had battled for a city that was already in ruins.
German conscripts recorded the brutality of the combat: "Stalingrad is no longer a city ... Even the hardest stones cannot bear it. Only men endure." Soviet forces were trapped in a thin strip of land on the edge of the Volga. But for all the horror and all the losses, they did not retreat. The world watched: if Stalingrad could be held, it seemed the war could be won. At last, a counter offensive trapped 300,000 enemy troops in a sealed enclave christened the 'cauldron'.
When the Germans finally surrendered only 90,000 of them remained alive. Just 5,000 would make it home. The retreat westward gathered pace and 6 months later Hitler ordered his final offensive on the eastern front. Martin Sixsmith visits Kursk where the "biggest tank battle in history" dealt Hitler his final body blow. Within a year, the Germans had been driven out of the Soviet Union. The Red Army swept westwards to Warsaw. Andrzej Wajda's 1957 film 'Kanal' depicts the final harrowing hours of the destruction of Warsaw by the Nazis, but its anger is also directed against the Soviets, who allowed 50,000 civilians to be wiped out to secure the future dictatorship of Communism. In mid-April, the Soviet assault on Berlin began. The Nazi capital was pounded with more shells than the Allied bombers had dropped on it in five years. A week later the Hammer and Sickle was planted on the roof of the Reichstag.
On the 9th of May, Stalin told the Soviet nation Germany had surrendered. "Our mighty nation - our mighty people - have triumphed over the forces of German imperialism... All our sacrifices, all our suffering and all our losses have not been in vain."
Factual; Documentaries
Harold Baim's Britain on Film
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm
A record of Britain and its people as seen through the lens of film-maker Harold Baim. Extracts from Baim's archive of bright and shiny cinema shorts from the 1940s to 1980s reveal a world that has gone forever.
News, Special report
Murdoch: The Mogul Who Screwed The News
Channel 4, 10:00-11:00pm
The incredible story of how Rupert Murdoch used celebrity scandal to bankroll his expanding media empire, before scandal ultimately engulfed the News of the World itself.
Jacques Peretti talks to everyone from Hugh Grant to Murdoch insiders to find out how the world of celebrities, cops and politicians first cosied up with, and then turned against, the world's most powerful media mogul.
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Thursday 28th July
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 39/50, The Spoils of War
Victory had been a remarkable national achievement and a chance for national unity that might have healed a fractured society.
But instead Stalin used the war as a pretext, to carry out a cynical campaign of ethnic engineering against those nationalities he viewed with suspicion: ethnic Soviet Germans were deported to Siberia; hundreds of thousands of Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks and Tartars were expelled from their homes; anti-semitism, briefly forgotten during the war resurfaced. People who expected their heroism to be rewarded with freedom and the right to participate in the running of their country found the party-state apparatus had reasserted its grip on power and did not intend to let go.
Major Yershov, in Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate, sums up the hopes of the nation: "He was certain that he was not only fighting the Germans, but fighting for a free Russia: certain that a victory over Hitler would be a victory over the death camps of the Gulag where his father, his mother and his sisters had perished..." Instead, the state was seeking to suppress the very qualities it had encouraged during the years of fighting. Courage, initiative and enterprise were deemed dangerous, former soldiers were regarded as a potentially hostile force, freedoms (religious and artistic) granted during the war were swiftly withdrawn, and the regime acted to prevent unrest in the only way it knew how - by sending potential troublemakers to the Gulag.
Set against Shostakovich's Anti-Formalist Rayok, written in private having been forced to publicly recant, Martin Sixsmith concludes, "if nothing had changed after the war, if Soviet society was simply going back to the old ways, the question inevitably arose in many people's minds of what exactly they'd been fighting for."
News; Documentaries
Tonight: Chemical Cosh for Kids?
ITV1, 7:30-8:00pm
The number of hyperactive children being given controversial drugs to control their behaviour has almost doubled in the last five years. Julie Etchingham investigates what is behind the increase and asks whether parents and doctors are too keen to use medication to sedate children as young as four years old.
Factual
Town with Nicholas Crane
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/4, Ludlow, THIS PROGRAMME IS SUBJECT TO A OPEN UNIVERSITY LICENCE FEE - Please see the Learning Centre Off-air recording web page for more details.
We live in one of the most urbanised countries on earth. By 2030 a staggering 92% of us will be living the urban life. Congested cities sprawl across our map, but they are not the only way to live. Smaller than a city, more intimate, more surprising: this series celebrates the forgotten world of the town.
An English market town on the Welsh border, Ludlow is small, landlocked and remote. Yet it has more listed buildings than anywhere else its size in Britain; not one, but two Michelin-starred restaurants; and a fairytale castle which was once the capital of Wales. Geographer and adventurer Nicholas Crane discovers how such a cut-off town came to be packed with so many treasures, and asks whether it really is as perfect as it first appears.
Factual; Science and Nature
Richard Hammond's Journey to the Bottom of the Ocean
BBC1, 11:35pm-12:35am, 2/2
What lies at the bottom of the oceans? What would happen if the planet lost its oceans? Richard Hammond is going to drain the oceans to find out.
Hidden beneath all that water are some of the biggest natural formations on earth: The longest mountain ranges, the tallest volcanoes and the deepest canyons.
Richard can reveal all this and more in a way never seen before, because he has the ultimate toy - a vast working 3D virtual Earth in a hangar.
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Friday 29th July
Factual; Arts, Culture & the Media; Life Stories; Documentaries
The Rattigan Enigma by Benedict Cumberpatch
Channel 4, 3:05-4:05am
Benedict Cumberbatch, one of the country's leading actors, explores the life and work of enigmatic playwright Terence Rattigan.
Rattigan was the master of the 'well crafted play' of upper class manners and repressed sexuality and he dominated the West End theatre scene throughout the 40s and early 50s. But then, in the mid fifties 'the angry young men arrived'; a wave of young playwrights and directors who introduced a new, radical style of theatre. Rattigan's work faced a critical onslaught and he fell completely out of fashion. But now, in his centenary year his plays are enjoying a huge revival.
But Rattigan himself remains an enigmatic figure - a troubled homosexual whose polite, restrained dramas confronted the very issues - sexual frustration, failed relationships, adultery and even suicide - that he found so difficult to deal with in his own life. He had a gift for commercial theatre but yearned to be taken seriously as a playwright.
In this film Benedict re-visits his old school Harrow where Rattigan was also educated and was first inspired to write plays. He takes a trip down memory lane with one of Rattigan's closest friends (Princess Jean Galizine) and he talks to playwrights, critics and directors about what it is about Rattigan's work which we find so appealing today.
News; Special report
Dispatches: How Murdoch Ran Britain
Dispatches investigates the world of the Rupert Murdoch and the influence and political power he holds in the UK.
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 34/50, The Iron Curtain
Details for this episode not available yet.
_________________________________________________________
*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.
_____________________________________________________
Saturday 23rd July
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm, 2/4, The Great Outdoors
Waldemar Januszczak continues his investigation of the Impressionists by taking us outdoors to their most famous locations. Although Impressionist pictures often look sunny and relaxed, achieving this peaceful air was hard work. Trudging through fog, wind and rain, across treacherous coastal rocks and knee-deep snow, Waldemar shows how the famous spontaneity of the Impressionists is thoroughly misleading.
This episode visits the French riverside locations that Monet loved to paint, and where Renoir captured the bonhomie of modern life. Waldemar also introduces a number of technical and practical developments of the age which completely revolutionised Impressionist painting - the invention of portable easels; the use of hog's hair in paint brushes; as well as the introduction of the railway through France. And a scientific demonstration in a Swedish snowdrift explains just how right the Impressionists were to paint brightly coloured shadows in their winter scenes, despite being accused of 'hallucinating' at the time.
Finally, Januszczak explains Cezanne's part in the Impressionist story from his dark and challenging early work to his first rural landscapes in France, and then his departure from Paris and separation from the Impressionist gang.
_____________________________________________________
Monday 25th July
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 36/50, The Great Patriotic War
The words of Konstantin Simonov's poem 'Wait for me and I shall return,' is an anthem of loss, courage and yearning for the terrible months that followed the outbreak of war in 1941.
Untrained volunteers fought with pikes and sticks, entire divisions were wiped out, but the Red Army did not collapse as Hitler had predicted. One General reported, "It is increasingly plain we have underestimated the Russian colossus... if we destroy a dozen, the Russians present us with a dozen more." Neither did the Soviet people welcome the Germans as saviours. Some Baltic states, where the invaders were seen as allies helping to throw off the Soviet yoke, greeted German soldiers with bread and salt, but they were repaid with brutality. Martin Sixsmith visits the suburb of Kiev that witnessed the biggest single massacre of the holocaust, immortalized in Yevgeny Yevtushenko's epic poem 'Babi Yar'. A heartrending account of one woman who survived is set against music from Shostakovich's 13th Symphony that uses the words of the poem. But German casualties were mounting. As winter approached, Hitler urged his generals to capture the major Soviet cities.
By early November the exhausted Germans were within 50 miles of Moscow. 600 miles and two fifths of the Soviet population were under enemy control, but the people's determination to fight was passionate. Stalin evoked heroes of the past to inspire new Russian heroes, but Sixsmith reflects, "their motives were not always the ones the Kremlin desired: people were fighting not for Stalin, not for the revolution or the Soviet Union, but for the Russian land." In the hit song of 1942 Napolean speaks to Hitler from the grave saying 'I'll move over and you can join me down here." The Soviet Union had been facing annihilation, but it had survived.
News; Documentaries
Panorama: One Born Every 40 Seconds
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm
The UK is in the middle of a baby boom. Last year, there was one born every forty seconds - the highest number for 20 years. But reporter Shelley Jofre reveals that some parts of the UK are facing a chronic shortage of midwives, and asks if the NHS is failing to deliver the safe and high quality maternity care mothers and babies deserve.
Religion and Ethics; Documentaries
The Life of Muhammad
BBC2, 9:00-10:00, 3/3, Holy Peace
In the final episode of The Life of Muhammad, presenter Rageh Omaar continues to chart the story of The Prophet Muhammad. Drawing on the expertise and comment from some of the world's leading academics and commentators on Islam, Omaar analyses and investigates key events during the later part of his life, including the introduction of a moral code known as Sharia and the concept of Jihad. The programme also explores Muhammad's use of marriage to build alliances, and looks at the key messages included in his final sermon. In line with Islamic tradition the programme does not depict any images of the face of Muhammad, or feature any dramatic re-constructions of Muhammad's life.
Factual: Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
The Art Of Cornwall
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm
The art colony of St Ives in Cornwall became as important as Paris or London in the history of modernism during a golden creative period between the 1920s and 1960s. The dramatic lives and works of eight artists who most made this miracle possible, from Kit Wood and Alfred Wallis to Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, are featured in a documentary which offers an alternative history of the 20th century avant-garde as well as a vivid portrayal of the history and landscapes of Cornwall itself.
__________________________________________________________
Tuesday 26th July
Factual: Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
British Masters
BBC4, 3:00-4:00am, 3/3, New Jerusalem
In the decades after the Second World War, at a time when many had lost their faith in humanity, British artists turned to the great figurative painting tradition to address the biggest questions of all: what does it mean to be human and how do we create a more humane world? Such existential angst is captured in Lucien Freud's harrowing early portraits and Graham Sutherland's Pembrokeshire landscapes. Francis Bacon stared deep into his own soul to explore the human capacity for evil, while Richard Hamilton warned against the false hope of consumerism. As national pessimism gave way to a new optimism, David Hockney dared to suggest Paradise might be available to us all. But in the early 1970s, just as the world finally began to recognise the genius of Britain's painterly tradition, young artists at home turned against it.
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 37/50, Redemption Through Blood
Having retreated from Moscow, Hitler focused on capturing the oilfields of the Caucasus, penetrating farther into Russia than any western army. Stalin urged the Red Army to greater sacrifices: "we must throw back the enemy whatever the cost. Those who retreat are traitors . and must be exterminated on the spot." 150,000 soldiers were executed for cowardice.
Those who survived were sent to penal battalions "to redeem by blood their crimes against the Motherland," drawing on the deep-seated Russian belief that the individual must sacrifice himself for the good of the state. Women took the strain in industry and agriculture, overtime was obligatory, holidays suspended and the working day increased to 12 hours. Food supplies were limited; the author Fyodor Abramov wrote of "little girls with runny noses" working in the forests: "you didn't dare come back without fulfilling your quota! Not on your life! "The front needs it!"' Hitler had pledged to make Leningrad a terrifying symbol of Nazi invincibility and for 900 days the city was shelled nonstop and starved of fuel and food. One in three of the city's 2.5 million inhabitants starved to death.
Martin Sixsmith stands in the concert hall where Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, which he dedicated to "our struggle against fascism ...our coming victory over the enemy and to my native city, Leningrad..." was first performed on August 9th 1942. So many members of the orchestra had died in the siege that amateur players were brought in to fill their seats, and the brass section was given special rations to give them the strength to play. But the performance was a triumph. It was broadcast on national radio and then around the world as a symbol of the strength of Soviet resistance that would eventually defeat the Nazi menace.
Factual; Arts, Culture & the Media; Documentaries
The Camera That Changed The World
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm
The summer of 1960 was a critical moment in the history of film, when the fly-on-the-wall documentary was born. The Camera that Changed the World tells the story of the filmmakers and ingenious engineers who led this revolution by building the first hand-held cameras that followed real life as it happened. By amazing co-incidence, there were two separate groups of them - one on each side of the Atlantic.
In the US, the pioneers used their new camera to make Primary, a compelling portrait of American politics. They followed a then little known John F Kennedy as he began his long campaign for the presidency. Meanwhile, in France, another new camera was inspiring an influential experiment in documentary filmmaking. Chronique d'un Ete captures the real lives of ordinary Parisians across the summer of 1960. Both these extraordinary films smashed existing conventions as handheld cameras followed the action across public spheres into intimate and previously hidden worlds.
In The Camera that Changed the World this remarkable story is told by the pioneers themselves, some of whom, such as DA Pennebaker and Al Maysles are now filmmaking legends. Back in 1960, they were determined young revolutionaries.
Factual; Documentaries
The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon
BBC4, 10:00-11:00, 2/3, Sport and Pleasure
Series which examines the recent discovery of 800 short films from the Edwardian age. The films have now been rescued after lying hidden in a cellar for over 80 years. Restored to their original clarity, these films shot by pioneering film-makers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon now take the viewer into a lost world. Dan Cruickshank then uses the films to throw new light on Britain at work and play before the First World War.
This programme features the first ever film of Manchester United, made within weeks of the club adopting the name of what is the most famous club in the world. It reveals how new leisure time swelled the crowds at exciting sporting events, and how people's extra cash allowed them holidays and fun in Blackpool and at home for the very first time.
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Wednesday 27th July
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 38/50, Glory To Our Victorious People
Victory at Stalingrad in February 1943 turned the tide of the war. For 6 months, 2 million soldiers had battled for a city that was already in ruins.
German conscripts recorded the brutality of the combat: "Stalingrad is no longer a city ... Even the hardest stones cannot bear it. Only men endure." Soviet forces were trapped in a thin strip of land on the edge of the Volga. But for all the horror and all the losses, they did not retreat. The world watched: if Stalingrad could be held, it seemed the war could be won. At last, a counter offensive trapped 300,000 enemy troops in a sealed enclave christened the 'cauldron'.
When the Germans finally surrendered only 90,000 of them remained alive. Just 5,000 would make it home. The retreat westward gathered pace and 6 months later Hitler ordered his final offensive on the eastern front. Martin Sixsmith visits Kursk where the "biggest tank battle in history" dealt Hitler his final body blow. Within a year, the Germans had been driven out of the Soviet Union. The Red Army swept westwards to Warsaw. Andrzej Wajda's 1957 film 'Kanal' depicts the final harrowing hours of the destruction of Warsaw by the Nazis, but its anger is also directed against the Soviets, who allowed 50,000 civilians to be wiped out to secure the future dictatorship of Communism. In mid-April, the Soviet assault on Berlin began. The Nazi capital was pounded with more shells than the Allied bombers had dropped on it in five years. A week later the Hammer and Sickle was planted on the roof of the Reichstag.
On the 9th of May, Stalin told the Soviet nation Germany had surrendered. "Our mighty nation - our mighty people - have triumphed over the forces of German imperialism... All our sacrifices, all our suffering and all our losses have not been in vain."
Factual; Documentaries
Harold Baim's Britain on Film
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm
A record of Britain and its people as seen through the lens of film-maker Harold Baim. Extracts from Baim's archive of bright and shiny cinema shorts from the 1940s to 1980s reveal a world that has gone forever.
News, Special report
Murdoch: The Mogul Who Screwed The News
Channel 4, 10:00-11:00pm
The incredible story of how Rupert Murdoch used celebrity scandal to bankroll his expanding media empire, before scandal ultimately engulfed the News of the World itself.
Jacques Peretti talks to everyone from Hugh Grant to Murdoch insiders to find out how the world of celebrities, cops and politicians first cosied up with, and then turned against, the world's most powerful media mogul.
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Thursday 28th July
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 39/50, The Spoils of War
Victory had been a remarkable national achievement and a chance for national unity that might have healed a fractured society.
But instead Stalin used the war as a pretext, to carry out a cynical campaign of ethnic engineering against those nationalities he viewed with suspicion: ethnic Soviet Germans were deported to Siberia; hundreds of thousands of Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks and Tartars were expelled from their homes; anti-semitism, briefly forgotten during the war resurfaced. People who expected their heroism to be rewarded with freedom and the right to participate in the running of their country found the party-state apparatus had reasserted its grip on power and did not intend to let go.
Major Yershov, in Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate, sums up the hopes of the nation: "He was certain that he was not only fighting the Germans, but fighting for a free Russia: certain that a victory over Hitler would be a victory over the death camps of the Gulag where his father, his mother and his sisters had perished..." Instead, the state was seeking to suppress the very qualities it had encouraged during the years of fighting. Courage, initiative and enterprise were deemed dangerous, former soldiers were regarded as a potentially hostile force, freedoms (religious and artistic) granted during the war were swiftly withdrawn, and the regime acted to prevent unrest in the only way it knew how - by sending potential troublemakers to the Gulag.
Set against Shostakovich's Anti-Formalist Rayok, written in private having been forced to publicly recant, Martin Sixsmith concludes, "if nothing had changed after the war, if Soviet society was simply going back to the old ways, the question inevitably arose in many people's minds of what exactly they'd been fighting for."
News; Documentaries
Tonight: Chemical Cosh for Kids?
ITV1, 7:30-8:00pm
The number of hyperactive children being given controversial drugs to control their behaviour has almost doubled in the last five years. Julie Etchingham investigates what is behind the increase and asks whether parents and doctors are too keen to use medication to sedate children as young as four years old.
Factual
Town with Nicholas Crane
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/4, Ludlow, THIS PROGRAMME IS SUBJECT TO A OPEN UNIVERSITY LICENCE FEE - Please see the Learning Centre Off-air recording web page for more details.
We live in one of the most urbanised countries on earth. By 2030 a staggering 92% of us will be living the urban life. Congested cities sprawl across our map, but they are not the only way to live. Smaller than a city, more intimate, more surprising: this series celebrates the forgotten world of the town.
An English market town on the Welsh border, Ludlow is small, landlocked and remote. Yet it has more listed buildings than anywhere else its size in Britain; not one, but two Michelin-starred restaurants; and a fairytale castle which was once the capital of Wales. Geographer and adventurer Nicholas Crane discovers how such a cut-off town came to be packed with so many treasures, and asks whether it really is as perfect as it first appears.
Factual; Science and Nature
Richard Hammond's Journey to the Bottom of the Ocean
BBC1, 11:35pm-12:35am, 2/2
What lies at the bottom of the oceans? What would happen if the planet lost its oceans? Richard Hammond is going to drain the oceans to find out.
Hidden beneath all that water are some of the biggest natural formations on earth: The longest mountain ranges, the tallest volcanoes and the deepest canyons.
Richard can reveal all this and more in a way never seen before, because he has the ultimate toy - a vast working 3D virtual Earth in a hangar.
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Friday 29th July
Factual; Arts, Culture & the Media; Life Stories; Documentaries
The Rattigan Enigma by Benedict Cumberpatch
Channel 4, 3:05-4:05am
Benedict Cumberbatch, one of the country's leading actors, explores the life and work of enigmatic playwright Terence Rattigan.
Rattigan was the master of the 'well crafted play' of upper class manners and repressed sexuality and he dominated the West End theatre scene throughout the 40s and early 50s. But then, in the mid fifties 'the angry young men arrived'; a wave of young playwrights and directors who introduced a new, radical style of theatre. Rattigan's work faced a critical onslaught and he fell completely out of fashion. But now, in his centenary year his plays are enjoying a huge revival.
But Rattigan himself remains an enigmatic figure - a troubled homosexual whose polite, restrained dramas confronted the very issues - sexual frustration, failed relationships, adultery and even suicide - that he found so difficult to deal with in his own life. He had a gift for commercial theatre but yearned to be taken seriously as a playwright.
In this film Benedict re-visits his old school Harrow where Rattigan was also educated and was first inspired to write plays. He takes a trip down memory lane with one of Rattigan's closest friends (Princess Jean Galizine) and he talks to playwrights, critics and directors about what it is about Rattigan's work which we find so appealing today.
News; Special report
Dispatches: How Murdoch Ran Britain
Dispatches investigates the world of the Rupert Murdoch and the influence and political power he holds in the UK.
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 34/50, The Iron Curtain
Details for this episode not available yet.
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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.
Thursday 14 July 2011
Off-air recordings for week 16-22 July 2011
Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk , or fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
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Saturday 16 July
Drama Documentary
Capitalism: A Love Story
More4, 10:00pm-12:45am
Michael Moore loves America, but America does not love Michael Moore. After the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 public opinion of the liberal filmmaker took a downturn. Republicans have good reason to hate him but the attitude of Democrats is baffling. They claim to dislike his oversimplification, his manipulation of emotions and sometimes facts, and his bombastic personality. Republicans have long used these methods to influence the public with great success - all Moore does is play them at their own highly effective game.
There's been a lot of talk around health care reform about Democrats behaving too nicely, too politely. Jon Stewart recently argued on 'The Daily Show' that it's the rationality and fairness of the Democrats that will prevent them from making any real changes. While the Republicans are sending out hugely marketable statements and buzzwords, however misguided, the Democrats are bumbling around with the details.
We love President Obama not for the small print of his plans, but for how he makes us feel. We need more "Yes we can" and less "Um, yes, well by 2011, we might". Moore has been a liberal in Republican's clothing for the last decade - he looks like a Republican and he sounds like a Republican. He takes radical ideas, mixes them up using the Republican recipe, and makes them easy to swallow.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/4, Gang of Four
Art writer Waldemar Januszczak explores the revolutionary achievements of the Impressionists. In the first episode, Waldemar delves into the back stories of four of the most influential Impressionists - Pissarro, Monet, Renoir and Bazille - who together laid the foundations of the artistic movement. He finds out what social and cultural influences drove them to their style of painting, how they were united and how ultimately they challenged and changed art forever.
Waldemar journeys from the shores of the West Indies, to the progressive city of Paris to the suburbs of South London, where these four artists drew inspiration from the cities and towns in which they lived. Whether it be the infamous spot on the river Seine - La Grenouillere - where Monet and Renoir beautifully captured animated people, iridescent light and undulating water or the minimalist, non-sensationalised illustrations of Pissarro's coarse countryside paintings, Waldemar discovers how the Impressionists broke conventions by depicting every day encounters within the unpredictable and ever changing sights around them.
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Sunday 17 July
Drama
Classic Serial: The History of Titus Groan
BBC Radio 4, 3:00-4:00pm, 2/6, Titus Inherits
As tension between Mr Flay and Swelter, head chef of Gormenghast, takes a deadly turn, Titus's foster mother Keda is drawn back into her old life amongst the bright carvers. Meanwhile, the first of Steerpike's great plans comes to fruition as he manipulates the ladies Clarice and Cora to great and tragic effect.
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Monday 18th
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 31/50, Collectivisation
Collectivisation was Stalin's flagship policy, crucial to the creation of the New Soviet Man, moulded in the ways of socialism, and he couldn't afford to see it fail. But his confident announcement of victory, celebrated in the 1930s musical 'The Rich Bride' (a sort of Ukrainian 'Oklahoma!') was premature.
Martin Sixsmith draws on the memories of 84 year old Masha Alekseevna, who witnessed the drive to collectivise Soviet agriculture with the eyes of a startled child. The problem for the Bolsheviks was that they'd never had much support in the countryside. For millions of ordinary peasants collectivisation meant swapping the yoke of the private landlords for the new yoke of the state and thousands of towns and villages rose up in revolt. 25,000 shock troops - class-conscious urban workers, former soldiers and young communists - were sent to bring the countryside to heel.
Sixsmith travels to Veryaevo, 250 miles SE of Moscow, where one of the fiercest rebellions took place and resentment and resistance bubbled on even after the authorities regained control. The immediate result of collectivization was appalling, widespread famine - described in contemporary reports by British diplomat Gareth Jones, and Malcolm Muggeridge, one of the few Western journalists courageous enough to travel to the affected areas and report the truth.
Just as Soviet cinema was turning out films about happy singing peasants, cases of cannibalism were increasingly being reported in the Ukraine, where 6 to 8 million people died. Stalin hadn't forgotten the civil war when some Ukrainians had welcomed the Polish invaders and he doubted the loyalty of non Russian nationalities. His suspicions would grow, until they ripened into the purges that would leave their dreadful mark on the rest of the decade.
Factual; Science and Nature and Environment; Wildlife; Documentaries
The Truth About Wildlife
BBC2, 7:00-7:30, 3/3
Naturalist Chris Packham presents a hard hitting personal take on what's going wrong - and sometimes right - with our woodland and heathland wildlife and its conservation.
He finds non-native conifer plantations that do little to aid native wildlife and iconic places like the New Forest and Dartmoor that are suffering loss of habitat.
He asks whether we are spending too much on cute and cuddly species like dormice and whether we should concentrate instead on connecting up important habitats like precious heathland that has been fragmented over the years.
News; Documentaries
Panorama: Gerry and the GPs
In this special edition of Panorama, troubleshooter and businessman Sir Gerry Robinson examines the government's plans for the biggest shake-up of the NHS in its history. Sir Gerry travels the country, taking the temperature on support for the reforms and talking to GPs with opposing views. He finds how change has already started with the closure of many Primary Care Trusts, and asks Health Secretary Andrew Lansley if the future of the NHS is at risk should his reforms fail.
Religion and Ethics; Documentaries
The Life of Muhammad
BBC2, 9:00-10:00, 2/3, Holy Wars
In this second episode of The Life of Muhammad, presenter Rageh Omaar continues to chart the story of The Prophet Muhammad.
Drawing on the expertise and comment from some of the world's leading academics and commentators on Islam, Omaar assesses and shines a light on key events in Muhammad's life including the Night Journey to Jerusalem, his life threatening departure from Mecca, through to the establishment of the Constitution of Medina and the eight year war with the Meccan tribes.
In line with Islamic tradition the programme does not depict any images of the face of Muhammad, or feature any dramatic re-constructions of Muhammad's life.
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Tuesday 19th
Factual: Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
British Masters
BBC4, 3:00-4:00am, 2/3, In Search of England
The inter-war years were a period of alarming national change. With a generation of youth lost to the trenches and the cracks in the Empire growing fast, the nation's confidence was in tatters. If we were no longer a mighty Imperial power, what were we? John Nash's mesmerising visions of rural arcadia, Stanley Spencer's glimpses of everyday divinity, Alfred Munnings' prelapsarian nostalgia, Paul Nash's timeless mysticism, John Piper's crumbling ruins, even William Coldstream's blunt celebration of working-class life - all, in their own way, were attempts to answer this question. And, as a reprise of war grew ever more likely, they struggled more urgently than ever to create an image of Britain we could fight for.
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 32/50, Industrialisation
Martin Sixsmith stands at the restored 'People's Economic Achievements Exhibition' in Moscow. He remembers visiting as a child when "proud guides delighted in showing us foreigners round the extravagantly decorated pavilions showcasing the achievements of Soviet industry and technology." He then recalls the subsequent years of decay. "What a perfect metaphor," he says, "for the meteoric rise and subsequent sorry fall of the Soviet Union's mighty industrialization programme."
Stalin launched his first Five Year Plan in 1928, tapping into centuries-old fears of Russian vulnerability and the spectre of powerful enemies at the gates, to mobilise the nation in the face of overwhelming odds: "We are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make up this distance in ten years... Either we do it, or they will crush us!"
The Five Year Plans set impossibly high targets and punitive timetables, but in spite of everything, the Soviet people rose to the challenge: output doubled and the Soviet Union became the world's second largest industrial producer. The surging energy of those years is captured in Mosolovs 'The Iron Foundry', and the iconic music Vremya Vperyod- Time Go Faster, which would introduce Soviet TV news bulletins up until 1991. But, as early as 1934 the reality was a sorry one. Despite Soviet propaganda which created a new national mythology (its heroes workers such as Alexei Stakhanov, a coalminer who mined a 102 tons of coal in one shift) when targets were not met, workers were branded 'wreckers' and saboteurs while relentless purges instilled constant anxiety -a great motivating factor, identified by playwright Alexander Afinogenov in his remarkably outspoken play 'Fear'.
Factual
Richard Hammond's Journey to the Centre of the Planet
BBC1, 9:00-10:00, 1/2
Our planet is unique. It's an extraordinary piece of engineering over four and a half billion years old. Now in a two-part series for BBC One, Richard Hammond embarks on a fascinating journey to the centre of the planet to investigate how the earth's machine dominates the modern world around us.
Using state of the art technology, Richard Hammond's Journey To The Centre Of The Planet lifts the lid on planet earth, peeling back the layers to reveal a machine more complex than anything else in the solar system. A giant 3D virtual earth brings together the latest scientific information from across the world – satellite maps, and sonar and radar images – to show us what's happening beneath our feet in a way we've never seen before.
Richard Hammond says: "In making this show I learned that our planet is far, far from being an inert lump of rock that we live on; it has a vital, dynamic role to play in defining and enabling our existence. People talk about going on a 'journey' in TV shows: well this has to be the ultimate such journey, not only across and around our world but deep into it. It's a journey that changed the way I think about the earth beneath our feet and I hope it does the same for the BBC One audience."
Factual; Documentaries
The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon
BBC4, 10:00-11:00, 1/3
Series which examines the recent discovery of 800 short films from the Edwardian Age, made by pioneering film-makers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon. Rescued after lying hidden in a cellar for over 80 years and restored to their original clarity, they throw new light on Britain at work and play before WWI. This first programme shows us life in the new cities as well cotton mills and factories.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
Imagine... Harry Nilsson: The Missing Beatle
BBC1, 10:35-11:50pm, 4/5
Alan Yentob introduces John Scheinfeld's documentary Harry Nilsson - The Missing Beatle, a film that tells the story of the riotous life and music of Harry Nilsson.
Nilsson, a friend and hero of Lennon's, was one of the most successful and influential, but least known, songwriters of his generation. He is remembered as much for his wild lifestyle as for his outstanding performance of Everybody's Talkin' from the movie soundtrack Midnight Cowboy.
The film showcases new and archived audio and film, including home movies, music videos, promotional films and segments from the unreleased documentary made during the recording of Son Of Schmilsson, Did Somebody Drop His Mouse? The film also features interviews with Robin Williams, Yoko Ono, Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, Ray Cooper, the Smothers Brothers and Micky Dolenz.
Factual; Life Stories
Travellers
BBC1, 11:50pm-12:55am, 1/2
The Stewarts are Scottish Travellers, proudly maintaining their traditional lifestyle, travelling the country in caravans and tents. They believe their culture is under threat, and that they are at odds with householders.
They want to foster better relations with the settled community, but they won't give up their Travelling lifestyle. They've let the cameras record their lives over a period of nine months, sharing precious moments, rarely witnessed outside their own community.
As the number of Travellers on the road shrinks, those that remain are determined to do whatever it takes to keep their culture alive.
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Wednesday 20th
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
Britain Through A Lens: The Documentary Film Mob
BBC4, 3:00-4:00am
The unlikely story of how, between 1929 and 1945, a group of tweed-wearing radicals and pin-striped bureaucrats created the most influential movement in the history of British film. They were the British Documentary Movement and they gave Britons a taste for watching films about real life.
They were an odd bunch, as one wit among them later admitted. "A documentary director must be a gentleman... and a socialist." They were inspired by a big idea - that films about real life would change the world. That, if people of all backgrounds saw each other on screen - as they really were - they would get to know and respect each other more. As John Grierson, the former street preacher who founded the Movement said: "Documentary outlines the patterns of interdependence".
The Documentary Film Mob assembles a collection of captivating film portraits of Britain, during the economic crisis of the 1930s and the Second World War. Featuring classic documentaries about slums and coal mines, about potters and posties, about the bombers and the Blitz, the programme reveals the fascinating story of what was also going on behind the camera. Of how the documentary was born and became part of British culture.
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 33/50, Socialist Realism
"My husband was like the little bird in the old Russian poem: they capture him and squeeze him by the throat -and then they tell him to sing!" Irina Shostakovich tells Martin Sixsmith. "They banned his music, he lost his job. But he wrote his secret revenge, his music".
For this programme, Sixsmith has spoken to those who lived through the persecution of the Stalin years - writers, composers and henchmen of the regime - to try to understand the role of art in a time of fear. "It allowed us to keep alive our freedom of memory and independence of thought in the dark years when 'they' were trying to reduce us to nothing..." says Yevgeny Pasternak of whose father, Boris, Stalin wrote on his police file: 'Leave that cloud-dweller in peace'. Sixsmith tells the stories of Anna Akhmatova who committed her verse to memory and burned the manuscripts; Osip Mandelstam who let rip - just once - with savage unguarded hatred for Stalin, was arrested and sent to the Gulag where he died; theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold who was tortured in the cells of the Lubyanka.
The poet Vladimir Mayakovsky epitomises the destiny of many who loved the revolution, and then, desperately out-of-love, committed suicide; and Sergei Prokofiev who fled abroad only to find he could live neither in his native land nor outside it. On his return, he was denounced by Tikhon Khrennikov, the head of the Soviet Composers' Union, and like Miaskovsky and Khatchaturian forced to make a humiliating public recantation for his musical 'crimes'.
When Khrennikov spoke to Sixsmith shortly before his death he fiercely rejected suggestions that he'd been a willing accomplice in the repression of musical life: "When I said No! it meant No. But - what else could I have done? Stalin's word was law."
Factual; History; Documentaries
Time To Remember
BBC4, 8:00-8:30pm, 2/12, Stage and Screen
In the 1950s, the newsreel company Pathe mined their archive to produce a series of programmes for television called Time to Remember. Made by the producer Peter Baylis, they chronicled the political, social and cultural changes that occurred during the first half of the 20th century.
Each episode was narrated by a prominent actor such as Ralph Richardson, Michael Redgrave, Anthony Quayle, Edith Evans, Basil Rathbone and Joyce Grenfell, all reading scripts recalling historic, evocative or significant moments from an intriguing past.
In 2010, the material from the original Time to Remember has been collected together thematically to create a new 12-part series under the same title that offers a rewarding perspective on the events, people and innovations from history that continue to shape and influence the world around us.
Archive footage from the theatres, music halls and cinemas of the 1920s and 30s combines with characterful voiceover to give a glimpse of the entertainment industries in their early 20th century golden age. It includes footage of Charles Laughton applying his own stage make-up, chorus line auditions and rehearsals in the West End, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks visiting Europe, and Alfred Hitchcock's first talkie, 1929's Blackmail.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Bristol on Film
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm
Bristol has fascinated film-makers from the moment the camera was invented. From shipping, sherry and tobacco to Brunel, bridges and the blitz, this programme explores the visual archives that document this ancient city.
Regional TV: Life Through a Local Lens
This is the story of how we fell in love with regional telly. Contributors including Angela Rippon, Michael Parkinson and Martin Bell describe the excitement and sense of adventure that existed during the very early days of local TV. In the late 50s and early 60s viewers were offered a new vision of the places where they lived. ITV and the BBC took advantage of transmitter technology and battled for the attention of an emerging regional audience.
The programme makers were an eclectic bunch but shared a common passion for a new form of TV that they were creating. For more than half a century they have reported on local stories. The early film-makers were granted freedom to experiment and create different shows and formats, including programmes that would later become huge hits. Regional TV also acted as a launch pad for presenters and reporters who would become household names.
But just how real was this portrayal of regional life? And how will local life be reflected on our screens in the future?
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Thursday 20th
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 34/50, Show Trials
Sergei Kirov had been a loyal ally of Stalin in the 1920s, but his popularity made Stalin regard him as a rival. Martin Sixsmith visits the "rather sumptuous 5 room apartment" in St Petersburg from which Kirov left for work on December 1st 1934. He never arrived.
Rumours that Stalin ordered Kirov's murder would persist for many years; the next day Stalin personally interrogated the assassin, forcing him to sign a statement that he had acted as part of an opposition plot led by Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev. Within days 100s of people were arrested and executed without trial and in the following years Stalin used the Kirov murder as a pretext to exterminate 100s of 1000s of people whom he considered enemies or potential enemies. Leading Bolsheviks were arrested and tortured until they confessed to imaginary crimes against the state; the Soviet Union was gripped by fear; denunciations proliferated. Executions could be ordered without a judge.
Families were held responsible for the crimes of a relative, and children were taught to inform on anyone they suspected of disloyalty to Stalin. The Tale of Pavlik Morozov, a schoolboy who denounced his own father was compulsory reading in schools; plays, paintings and an opera inculcated the message that loyalty to one's family is less important than loyalty to the state.
With the murder of Trotsky who, from his in exile in Mexico had kept up a vendetta against Stalin, in 1940, Stalin had achieved his goal of removing all actual or potential rivals for power. But the purges of the 1930s had disastrous consequences. Millions died, the economy suffered, national security was undermined, and Stalin had destroyed the cream of the Soviet Union's armed forces at the very moment that the clouds of world war were gathering on the horizon.
News; Documentary
Tonight: Chemical Cosh for Kids?
ITV1, 7:30-8:00pm
The number of hyperactive children being given controversial drugs to control their behaviour has almost doubled in the last five years. Julie Etchingham investigates what is behind the increase and asks whether parents and doctors are too keen to use medication to sedate children as young as four years old.
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Friday 20th
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 35/50, The Faustian Pact
No details for this particular episode available yet.
Factual; History; Documentary
The Golden Age of Canals
BBC2, 9:00-10:00
Most people thought that when the working traffic on canals faded away after the war, it would be the end of their story. But they were wrong. A few diehard enthusiasts and boat owners campaigned, lobbied and dug, sometimes with their bare hands, to keep the network of narrow canals open.
Some of these enthusiasts filmed their campaigns and their home movies tell the story of how, in the teeth of much political opposition, they saved the inland waterways for the nation and, more than 200 years after they were first built, created a second golden age of the canals.
Stan Offley, an IWA activist from Ellesmere Port, filmed his boating trips around the wide canals in the 40s, 50s and 60s in 16mm colour. But equally charming is the film made by Ed Frangleton, with help from Harry Arnold, of a hostel boat holiday on the Llangollen Canal in 1961. There are the films shot by ex-working boatmen Ike Argent from his home in Nottinghamshire and looked after by his son Barry.
There is astonishing film of the last days of working boats, some shot by John Pyper when he spent time with the Beechey's in the 60s, film taken by Keith Christie of the last days of the cut around the BCN, and the films made by Keith and his mate Tony Gregory of their attempts to keep working the canals through their carrying company, Midland Canal Transport.
There is film of key restorations, the Stourbridge 16 being talked about with great wit and affection by one of the leading activists in that watershed of restorations in the mid-60s, David Tomlinson, and John Maynard's beautiful films of the restoration of the Huddersfield, 'the impossible restoration', shot over two decades.
All these and more are in the programme alongside the people who made the films and some of the stars of them. Together they tell the story of how, in the years after 1945, a few people fought the government like David fought Goliath to keep canals open and restore ones that had become defunct, and won against all the odds.
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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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Saturday 16 July
Drama Documentary
Capitalism: A Love Story
More4, 10:00pm-12:45am
Michael Moore loves America, but America does not love Michael Moore. After the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 public opinion of the liberal filmmaker took a downturn. Republicans have good reason to hate him but the attitude of Democrats is baffling. They claim to dislike his oversimplification, his manipulation of emotions and sometimes facts, and his bombastic personality. Republicans have long used these methods to influence the public with great success - all Moore does is play them at their own highly effective game.
There's been a lot of talk around health care reform about Democrats behaving too nicely, too politely. Jon Stewart recently argued on 'The Daily Show' that it's the rationality and fairness of the Democrats that will prevent them from making any real changes. While the Republicans are sending out hugely marketable statements and buzzwords, however misguided, the Democrats are bumbling around with the details.
We love President Obama not for the small print of his plans, but for how he makes us feel. We need more "Yes we can" and less "Um, yes, well by 2011, we might". Moore has been a liberal in Republican's clothing for the last decade - he looks like a Republican and he sounds like a Republican. He takes radical ideas, mixes them up using the Republican recipe, and makes them easy to swallow.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/4, Gang of Four
Art writer Waldemar Januszczak explores the revolutionary achievements of the Impressionists. In the first episode, Waldemar delves into the back stories of four of the most influential Impressionists - Pissarro, Monet, Renoir and Bazille - who together laid the foundations of the artistic movement. He finds out what social and cultural influences drove them to their style of painting, how they were united and how ultimately they challenged and changed art forever.
Waldemar journeys from the shores of the West Indies, to the progressive city of Paris to the suburbs of South London, where these four artists drew inspiration from the cities and towns in which they lived. Whether it be the infamous spot on the river Seine - La Grenouillere - where Monet and Renoir beautifully captured animated people, iridescent light and undulating water or the minimalist, non-sensationalised illustrations of Pissarro's coarse countryside paintings, Waldemar discovers how the Impressionists broke conventions by depicting every day encounters within the unpredictable and ever changing sights around them.
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Sunday 17 July
Drama
Classic Serial: The History of Titus Groan
BBC Radio 4, 3:00-4:00pm, 2/6, Titus Inherits
As tension between Mr Flay and Swelter, head chef of Gormenghast, takes a deadly turn, Titus's foster mother Keda is drawn back into her old life amongst the bright carvers. Meanwhile, the first of Steerpike's great plans comes to fruition as he manipulates the ladies Clarice and Cora to great and tragic effect.
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Monday 18th
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 31/50, Collectivisation
Collectivisation was Stalin's flagship policy, crucial to the creation of the New Soviet Man, moulded in the ways of socialism, and he couldn't afford to see it fail. But his confident announcement of victory, celebrated in the 1930s musical 'The Rich Bride' (a sort of Ukrainian 'Oklahoma!') was premature.
Martin Sixsmith draws on the memories of 84 year old Masha Alekseevna, who witnessed the drive to collectivise Soviet agriculture with the eyes of a startled child. The problem for the Bolsheviks was that they'd never had much support in the countryside. For millions of ordinary peasants collectivisation meant swapping the yoke of the private landlords for the new yoke of the state and thousands of towns and villages rose up in revolt. 25,000 shock troops - class-conscious urban workers, former soldiers and young communists - were sent to bring the countryside to heel.
Sixsmith travels to Veryaevo, 250 miles SE of Moscow, where one of the fiercest rebellions took place and resentment and resistance bubbled on even after the authorities regained control. The immediate result of collectivization was appalling, widespread famine - described in contemporary reports by British diplomat Gareth Jones, and Malcolm Muggeridge, one of the few Western journalists courageous enough to travel to the affected areas and report the truth.
Just as Soviet cinema was turning out films about happy singing peasants, cases of cannibalism were increasingly being reported in the Ukraine, where 6 to 8 million people died. Stalin hadn't forgotten the civil war when some Ukrainians had welcomed the Polish invaders and he doubted the loyalty of non Russian nationalities. His suspicions would grow, until they ripened into the purges that would leave their dreadful mark on the rest of the decade.
Factual; Science and Nature and Environment; Wildlife; Documentaries
The Truth About Wildlife
BBC2, 7:00-7:30, 3/3
Naturalist Chris Packham presents a hard hitting personal take on what's going wrong - and sometimes right - with our woodland and heathland wildlife and its conservation.
He finds non-native conifer plantations that do little to aid native wildlife and iconic places like the New Forest and Dartmoor that are suffering loss of habitat.
He asks whether we are spending too much on cute and cuddly species like dormice and whether we should concentrate instead on connecting up important habitats like precious heathland that has been fragmented over the years.
News; Documentaries
Panorama: Gerry and the GPs
In this special edition of Panorama, troubleshooter and businessman Sir Gerry Robinson examines the government's plans for the biggest shake-up of the NHS in its history. Sir Gerry travels the country, taking the temperature on support for the reforms and talking to GPs with opposing views. He finds how change has already started with the closure of many Primary Care Trusts, and asks Health Secretary Andrew Lansley if the future of the NHS is at risk should his reforms fail.
Religion and Ethics; Documentaries
The Life of Muhammad
BBC2, 9:00-10:00, 2/3, Holy Wars
In this second episode of The Life of Muhammad, presenter Rageh Omaar continues to chart the story of The Prophet Muhammad.
Drawing on the expertise and comment from some of the world's leading academics and commentators on Islam, Omaar assesses and shines a light on key events in Muhammad's life including the Night Journey to Jerusalem, his life threatening departure from Mecca, through to the establishment of the Constitution of Medina and the eight year war with the Meccan tribes.
In line with Islamic tradition the programme does not depict any images of the face of Muhammad, or feature any dramatic re-constructions of Muhammad's life.
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Tuesday 19th
Factual: Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
British Masters
BBC4, 3:00-4:00am, 2/3, In Search of England
The inter-war years were a period of alarming national change. With a generation of youth lost to the trenches and the cracks in the Empire growing fast, the nation's confidence was in tatters. If we were no longer a mighty Imperial power, what were we? John Nash's mesmerising visions of rural arcadia, Stanley Spencer's glimpses of everyday divinity, Alfred Munnings' prelapsarian nostalgia, Paul Nash's timeless mysticism, John Piper's crumbling ruins, even William Coldstream's blunt celebration of working-class life - all, in their own way, were attempts to answer this question. And, as a reprise of war grew ever more likely, they struggled more urgently than ever to create an image of Britain we could fight for.
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 32/50, Industrialisation
Martin Sixsmith stands at the restored 'People's Economic Achievements Exhibition' in Moscow. He remembers visiting as a child when "proud guides delighted in showing us foreigners round the extravagantly decorated pavilions showcasing the achievements of Soviet industry and technology." He then recalls the subsequent years of decay. "What a perfect metaphor," he says, "for the meteoric rise and subsequent sorry fall of the Soviet Union's mighty industrialization programme."
Stalin launched his first Five Year Plan in 1928, tapping into centuries-old fears of Russian vulnerability and the spectre of powerful enemies at the gates, to mobilise the nation in the face of overwhelming odds: "We are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make up this distance in ten years... Either we do it, or they will crush us!"
The Five Year Plans set impossibly high targets and punitive timetables, but in spite of everything, the Soviet people rose to the challenge: output doubled and the Soviet Union became the world's second largest industrial producer. The surging energy of those years is captured in Mosolovs 'The Iron Foundry', and the iconic music Vremya Vperyod- Time Go Faster, which would introduce Soviet TV news bulletins up until 1991. But, as early as 1934 the reality was a sorry one. Despite Soviet propaganda which created a new national mythology (its heroes workers such as Alexei Stakhanov, a coalminer who mined a 102 tons of coal in one shift) when targets were not met, workers were branded 'wreckers' and saboteurs while relentless purges instilled constant anxiety -a great motivating factor, identified by playwright Alexander Afinogenov in his remarkably outspoken play 'Fear'.
Factual
Richard Hammond's Journey to the Centre of the Planet
BBC1, 9:00-10:00, 1/2
Our planet is unique. It's an extraordinary piece of engineering over four and a half billion years old. Now in a two-part series for BBC One, Richard Hammond embarks on a fascinating journey to the centre of the planet to investigate how the earth's machine dominates the modern world around us.
Using state of the art technology, Richard Hammond's Journey To The Centre Of The Planet lifts the lid on planet earth, peeling back the layers to reveal a machine more complex than anything else in the solar system. A giant 3D virtual earth brings together the latest scientific information from across the world – satellite maps, and sonar and radar images – to show us what's happening beneath our feet in a way we've never seen before.
Richard Hammond says: "In making this show I learned that our planet is far, far from being an inert lump of rock that we live on; it has a vital, dynamic role to play in defining and enabling our existence. People talk about going on a 'journey' in TV shows: well this has to be the ultimate such journey, not only across and around our world but deep into it. It's a journey that changed the way I think about the earth beneath our feet and I hope it does the same for the BBC One audience."
Factual; Documentaries
The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon
BBC4, 10:00-11:00, 1/3
Series which examines the recent discovery of 800 short films from the Edwardian Age, made by pioneering film-makers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon. Rescued after lying hidden in a cellar for over 80 years and restored to their original clarity, they throw new light on Britain at work and play before WWI. This first programme shows us life in the new cities as well cotton mills and factories.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
Imagine... Harry Nilsson: The Missing Beatle
BBC1, 10:35-11:50pm, 4/5
Alan Yentob introduces John Scheinfeld's documentary Harry Nilsson - The Missing Beatle, a film that tells the story of the riotous life and music of Harry Nilsson.
Nilsson, a friend and hero of Lennon's, was one of the most successful and influential, but least known, songwriters of his generation. He is remembered as much for his wild lifestyle as for his outstanding performance of Everybody's Talkin' from the movie soundtrack Midnight Cowboy.
The film showcases new and archived audio and film, including home movies, music videos, promotional films and segments from the unreleased documentary made during the recording of Son Of Schmilsson, Did Somebody Drop His Mouse? The film also features interviews with Robin Williams, Yoko Ono, Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, Ray Cooper, the Smothers Brothers and Micky Dolenz.
Factual; Life Stories
Travellers
BBC1, 11:50pm-12:55am, 1/2
The Stewarts are Scottish Travellers, proudly maintaining their traditional lifestyle, travelling the country in caravans and tents. They believe their culture is under threat, and that they are at odds with householders.
They want to foster better relations with the settled community, but they won't give up their Travelling lifestyle. They've let the cameras record their lives over a period of nine months, sharing precious moments, rarely witnessed outside their own community.
As the number of Travellers on the road shrinks, those that remain are determined to do whatever it takes to keep their culture alive.
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Wednesday 20th
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
Britain Through A Lens: The Documentary Film Mob
BBC4, 3:00-4:00am
The unlikely story of how, between 1929 and 1945, a group of tweed-wearing radicals and pin-striped bureaucrats created the most influential movement in the history of British film. They were the British Documentary Movement and they gave Britons a taste for watching films about real life.
They were an odd bunch, as one wit among them later admitted. "A documentary director must be a gentleman... and a socialist." They were inspired by a big idea - that films about real life would change the world. That, if people of all backgrounds saw each other on screen - as they really were - they would get to know and respect each other more. As John Grierson, the former street preacher who founded the Movement said: "Documentary outlines the patterns of interdependence".
The Documentary Film Mob assembles a collection of captivating film portraits of Britain, during the economic crisis of the 1930s and the Second World War. Featuring classic documentaries about slums and coal mines, about potters and posties, about the bombers and the Blitz, the programme reveals the fascinating story of what was also going on behind the camera. Of how the documentary was born and became part of British culture.
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 33/50, Socialist Realism
"My husband was like the little bird in the old Russian poem: they capture him and squeeze him by the throat -and then they tell him to sing!" Irina Shostakovich tells Martin Sixsmith. "They banned his music, he lost his job. But he wrote his secret revenge, his music".
For this programme, Sixsmith has spoken to those who lived through the persecution of the Stalin years - writers, composers and henchmen of the regime - to try to understand the role of art in a time of fear. "It allowed us to keep alive our freedom of memory and independence of thought in the dark years when 'they' were trying to reduce us to nothing..." says Yevgeny Pasternak of whose father, Boris, Stalin wrote on his police file: 'Leave that cloud-dweller in peace'. Sixsmith tells the stories of Anna Akhmatova who committed her verse to memory and burned the manuscripts; Osip Mandelstam who let rip - just once - with savage unguarded hatred for Stalin, was arrested and sent to the Gulag where he died; theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold who was tortured in the cells of the Lubyanka.
The poet Vladimir Mayakovsky epitomises the destiny of many who loved the revolution, and then, desperately out-of-love, committed suicide; and Sergei Prokofiev who fled abroad only to find he could live neither in his native land nor outside it. On his return, he was denounced by Tikhon Khrennikov, the head of the Soviet Composers' Union, and like Miaskovsky and Khatchaturian forced to make a humiliating public recantation for his musical 'crimes'.
When Khrennikov spoke to Sixsmith shortly before his death he fiercely rejected suggestions that he'd been a willing accomplice in the repression of musical life: "When I said No! it meant No. But - what else could I have done? Stalin's word was law."
Factual; History; Documentaries
Time To Remember
BBC4, 8:00-8:30pm, 2/12, Stage and Screen
In the 1950s, the newsreel company Pathe mined their archive to produce a series of programmes for television called Time to Remember. Made by the producer Peter Baylis, they chronicled the political, social and cultural changes that occurred during the first half of the 20th century.
Each episode was narrated by a prominent actor such as Ralph Richardson, Michael Redgrave, Anthony Quayle, Edith Evans, Basil Rathbone and Joyce Grenfell, all reading scripts recalling historic, evocative or significant moments from an intriguing past.
In 2010, the material from the original Time to Remember has been collected together thematically to create a new 12-part series under the same title that offers a rewarding perspective on the events, people and innovations from history that continue to shape and influence the world around us.
Archive footage from the theatres, music halls and cinemas of the 1920s and 30s combines with characterful voiceover to give a glimpse of the entertainment industries in their early 20th century golden age. It includes footage of Charles Laughton applying his own stage make-up, chorus line auditions and rehearsals in the West End, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks visiting Europe, and Alfred Hitchcock's first talkie, 1929's Blackmail.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Bristol on Film
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm
Bristol has fascinated film-makers from the moment the camera was invented. From shipping, sherry and tobacco to Brunel, bridges and the blitz, this programme explores the visual archives that document this ancient city.
Regional TV: Life Through a Local Lens
This is the story of how we fell in love with regional telly. Contributors including Angela Rippon, Michael Parkinson and Martin Bell describe the excitement and sense of adventure that existed during the very early days of local TV. In the late 50s and early 60s viewers were offered a new vision of the places where they lived. ITV and the BBC took advantage of transmitter technology and battled for the attention of an emerging regional audience.
The programme makers were an eclectic bunch but shared a common passion for a new form of TV that they were creating. For more than half a century they have reported on local stories. The early film-makers were granted freedom to experiment and create different shows and formats, including programmes that would later become huge hits. Regional TV also acted as a launch pad for presenters and reporters who would become household names.
But just how real was this portrayal of regional life? And how will local life be reflected on our screens in the future?
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Thursday 20th
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 34/50, Show Trials
Sergei Kirov had been a loyal ally of Stalin in the 1920s, but his popularity made Stalin regard him as a rival. Martin Sixsmith visits the "rather sumptuous 5 room apartment" in St Petersburg from which Kirov left for work on December 1st 1934. He never arrived.
Rumours that Stalin ordered Kirov's murder would persist for many years; the next day Stalin personally interrogated the assassin, forcing him to sign a statement that he had acted as part of an opposition plot led by Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev. Within days 100s of people were arrested and executed without trial and in the following years Stalin used the Kirov murder as a pretext to exterminate 100s of 1000s of people whom he considered enemies or potential enemies. Leading Bolsheviks were arrested and tortured until they confessed to imaginary crimes against the state; the Soviet Union was gripped by fear; denunciations proliferated. Executions could be ordered without a judge.
Families were held responsible for the crimes of a relative, and children were taught to inform on anyone they suspected of disloyalty to Stalin. The Tale of Pavlik Morozov, a schoolboy who denounced his own father was compulsory reading in schools; plays, paintings and an opera inculcated the message that loyalty to one's family is less important than loyalty to the state.
With the murder of Trotsky who, from his in exile in Mexico had kept up a vendetta against Stalin, in 1940, Stalin had achieved his goal of removing all actual or potential rivals for power. But the purges of the 1930s had disastrous consequences. Millions died, the economy suffered, national security was undermined, and Stalin had destroyed the cream of the Soviet Union's armed forces at the very moment that the clouds of world war were gathering on the horizon.
News; Documentary
Tonight: Chemical Cosh for Kids?
ITV1, 7:30-8:00pm
The number of hyperactive children being given controversial drugs to control their behaviour has almost doubled in the last five years. Julie Etchingham investigates what is behind the increase and asks whether parents and doctors are too keen to use medication to sedate children as young as four years old.
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Friday 20th
Factual; Documentary
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 35/50, The Faustian Pact
No details for this particular episode available yet.
Factual; History; Documentary
The Golden Age of Canals
BBC2, 9:00-10:00
Most people thought that when the working traffic on canals faded away after the war, it would be the end of their story. But they were wrong. A few diehard enthusiasts and boat owners campaigned, lobbied and dug, sometimes with their bare hands, to keep the network of narrow canals open.
Some of these enthusiasts filmed their campaigns and their home movies tell the story of how, in the teeth of much political opposition, they saved the inland waterways for the nation and, more than 200 years after they were first built, created a second golden age of the canals.
Stan Offley, an IWA activist from Ellesmere Port, filmed his boating trips around the wide canals in the 40s, 50s and 60s in 16mm colour. But equally charming is the film made by Ed Frangleton, with help from Harry Arnold, of a hostel boat holiday on the Llangollen Canal in 1961. There are the films shot by ex-working boatmen Ike Argent from his home in Nottinghamshire and looked after by his son Barry.
There is astonishing film of the last days of working boats, some shot by John Pyper when he spent time with the Beechey's in the 60s, film taken by Keith Christie of the last days of the cut around the BCN, and the films made by Keith and his mate Tony Gregory of their attempts to keep working the canals through their carrying company, Midland Canal Transport.
There is film of key restorations, the Stourbridge 16 being talked about with great wit and affection by one of the leading activists in that watershed of restorations in the mid-60s, David Tomlinson, and John Maynard's beautiful films of the restoration of the Huddersfield, 'the impossible restoration', shot over two decades.
All these and more are in the programme alongside the people who made the films and some of the stars of them. Together they tell the story of how, in the years after 1945, a few people fought the government like David fought Goliath to keep canals open and restore ones that had become defunct, and won against all the odds.
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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.
Thursday 7 July 2011
Off-air recordings for week 9-15 July 2011
Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk , or fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
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Sunday 10 July
Drama
Classic Serial: The History of Titus Groan
BBC Radio 4, 3:00-4:00pm, 1/6
Based on the novels written by Mervyn Peake and on the recently discovered concluding volume written by his widow, Maeve Gilmore, the six one hour episodes chronicle Titus' life from birth, through childhood and adolescence to his decision to renounce his title and embark on an exploration of the alien world beyond the confines of his home. Gormenghast - a vast stronghold of crumbling masonry steeped in immemorial ritual and inhabited with an extraordinary cavalcade of characters including the kitchen boy, Steerpike, who ruthlessly rises to the upper echelons of dynastic power through mischief and murder.
It is a journey in search of identity that eventually takes Titus to a distant island where he encounters the man who is none other than his creator.
Peake's Gormenghast is both a fantasy world conceived by a unique and vivid imagination and a satirical allegory on the fancies, foibles and phobias of the world around us. The History of Titus Groan is broadcast to mark the centenary of Mervyn Peake's birth in July 1911
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Monday 11 July
Factual; History
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 26/50 - Twelve Hours of Democracy
Martin Sixsmith continues his major series tracing 1000 years of Russian history. He begins part two of 'Russia: the Wild East' amidst the whirlwind of the 1917 revolution.
At this great flashpoint in Russia's past, he concludes, as we saw in part one that things seem to change radically, only to revert to old stereotypes with spellbinding regularity. The next five weeks show how these recurring patterns help us understand modern Russia, and modern Russians. Sixsmith quotes Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago which captures the cruelty, chaos and violence of 1917. It starts with positive and hopeful imagery anticipating a new beginning, the new order Russia had long yearned for - 'Freedom dropped out of the sky' writes Pasternak and Sixsmith reflects "It's a feeling I remember myself, from another turning point in Russian history 1991, when I witnessed the defeat of the hardline coup against the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev. For the victorious demonstrators I mingled with on the bullet riddled Moscow streets, freedom did indeed seem to have dropped from the sky".
While Pasternak captures the speed and violence with which expectations of a new world were crushed in 1917 Sixsmith reflects on the pragmatic necessity underlying Lenin's ruthlessness and on the fatal attraction Lenin held for a Russian people who naively thought he was bringing them freedom. In light of later Russian historiography, which continued to revere Lenin even as it denounced Stalin for the crimes of the Soviet system, Sixsmith paints a picture of the first Bolshevik leader. It was he, not Stalin, who founded the one party state, created the feared secret police and the Gulag system of forced labour camps and who first gave the order for summary executions of suspected political opponents.
Factual
Strictly Kosher
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm
The Jewish community in Manchester is a kaleidoscope of tradition, religion and extravagance. This documentary film opens a window into their lives and shows a wide variety of ritual and celebrations.
Strictly Kosher, filmed, produced and directed by Chris Malone, revolves around three families and their friends and paints a colourful picture of the juxtaposition between the many different personalities and levels of religious observance in Manchester’s Jewish community. It offers an insight into lifestyles which range from one extreme – traditional and strict - to the other – modern and extravagant - but are bound together by one faith.
The film follows Bernette Clarke, a very lively and modern Orthodox Jewish mother of three. Bernette talks openly about her faith, explains the traditional approach her family has to the Sabbath and other Jewish festivals, and offers her views on the wider Jewish community.
Joel Lever and his wife Joanne also allow the cameras into their lives. Joel’s family are traditionally Jewish by birth, but he admits they are not very religious. Joel puts his all into his fashion boutique ‘Mon Amie’ which is frequented by the Jewish ladies of Prestwich – by making the Jewish women the talk of the town, he feels he is serving the local community.
83-year-old Jack Aizenberg tells the ultimate rags to riches story. He was just eleven years old at the outbreak of the Second World War and his family were killed in Belzec Extermination camp in 1942 when he was just 14. Against the odds Jack survived and made his way to Manchester, England in 1945. Jack feels that religion is not as important as basic common humanity and does not practice all the requirements of the Jewish faith, but he’s a celebrated survivor venerated by the Jewish community in Manchester. Having made a successful career in the luggage trade, Jack is thrilled to have the money to throw his grandson a lavish Bar Mitzvah – a special moment caught on camera.
Religion & Ethics; Documentary
The Life of Muhammed
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3 - The Seeker
In a ground-breaking first for British television, this three-part series presented by Rageh Omaar charts the life of Muhammad, a man who - for the billion and half Muslims across the globe - is the messenger and final prophet of God.
In a journey that is both literal and historical and beginning in Muhammad's birthplace of Mecca, Omaar investigates the Arabia Muhammad was born into - a world of tribal loyalties and polytheistic religion.
Drawing on the expertise and comment of some of the world's leading academics and commentators on Islam, the programme examines Muhammad's first marriage to Khadijah and how he received the first of the revelations that had such a profound effect both on his life, and on the lives of those closest to him.
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Tuesday 12 July
Factual; History
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 27/50 - The Murder of the Royal Family
The tsarist regime may have toppled, but supporters of the old order wanted revenge. Even before the war with Germany ended, a violent civil war was threatening to erupt. The conflict between Bolshevik Reds and Tsarist Whites was immensely bloody, the atrocities committed by both sides appalling and its consequences terrible. Sixsmith stands at the spot in Yekaterinburg where the last tsar of Russia met his fate and draws on an eyewitness account of the execution by an ad hoc firing squad. Recent research suggests the decision was taken personally by Lenin to prevent Nicholas II being rescued and used as a rallying point for the White cause.
The Red's were surrounded and outnumbered but Lenin stirred up his forces with passionate speeches and Trotsky pulled off an incredible volte face when he routed the White Army stationed at Gatchina 30 miles North of Petrograd. The defence of Petrograd made Trotsky an iconic, terrifying figure, but his own memoirs quoted by Sixsmith, suggest it was a close run thing. Petrograd was renamed in his honour and was called Trotsk until he fell from grace in 1929. Germany's defeat in the World War allowed the Bolsheviks to recoup much of the territory they'd ceded when they withdrew from the war, although the Bolsheviks had to appeal to old fashioned Russian nationalism to defeat the advancing Poles. After peace with Poland Trotsky was able to annihilate the remains of the White Army in the Crimea, immortalised in Bulgakov's play Flight in which two departing White officers discuss the destruction of the old Russia, and the utter failure of the struggle to save her from the Bolshevik yoke.
Factual; History; Documentary
Imagine... Lennon: The New York Years
BBC1, 10:45pm-12:05am
In September 1971, two years after the Beatles split up, John Lennon, dispirited and disillusioned with life in England, escaped across the Atlantic to New York City.
He was tired of the constant scrutiny and criticism at home, and hated the venomous press hounding him and Yoko Ono. He dreamt of starting a peaceful new life in a city he'd come to love. Instead, what followed was more like a rollercoaster ride: a tempestuous period in his relationship, a battle against the US immigration authorities, and a famous wild spell: the 'lost weekend'. Michael Epstein's fascinating film, featuring previously unseen archive footage and unprecedentedly candid interviews with key figures including Yoko Ono, charts this little-known period of Lennon's life - the years leading up to his untimely death.
It's the story of an artist trying to reinvent himself having become one of the most famous musicians in history, an idealist finding a new way to channel his celebrity by trying to change the world through politics. And a talented but vulnerable human being coming to terms with his own demons in the absence of the woman he loves.
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Wednesday 13 July
Factual; History
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 28/50 - The Terror
Gunshots ring out in a dramatic black and white Soviet feature film while Martin Sixsmith stands at the spot where Fanny Kaplan tried to kill Lenin in August 1918. It unleashed the 'Red Terror' in which 100's maybe 1000's of so-called class enemies were executed for no other crime than their social origin.
In the name of Lenin's future Utopia, an estimated half a million people were eliminated in 3 years. Famine, conflict, typhus and economic devastation were bringing the country close to collapse and shortly before he himself starved to death, the philosopher Vasily Razanov wrote presciently: "With a clank, a squeal and a groan, an iron curtain has descended over Russian history". With his regime tottering, Lenin was quick to abandon his promises of freedom, justice and self-determination, replacing them with what came to be known as War Communism - harsh, enslaving and repressive. Forced labour was systematically imposed on the population; industry nationalized, private enterprise banned; food rationed and Russian society transformed into an increasingly militarized dictatorship.
The Bolsheviks rallied the masses - no longer seen as agents of the revolution but as an expendable resource to be exploited in the great experiment of building socialism - to their cause by giving them the licence to plunder and murder the castigated richer peasants or kulaks who had kept the rural economy going. Agriculture regressed, cities starved & a 70,000 strong Peasant Army emerged, (reminiscent of the great historical revolts of Razin and Pugachev) prepared to fight for freedom and the right to the land. It took 100,000 troops to massacre the rebels with poison gas as they hid in the forests. But things were getting to the point where terror alone could not solve the problem.
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Thursday 14 July
Factual; Life Stories; Documentaries
Roger: Genocide Baby
BBC3, 12:15-1:15am
At 16, Roger Nsengiyumva has already made a name for himself as the star of the football movie Africa United. But there's something else about Roger; he was born in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and only survived thanks to the raw courage of his mother. She spent 100 days hiding her newborn baby from the murderous gangs, and then bravely escaped to Britain after seeing her husband, Roger's father, shot dead. This is the story of Roger's return to his homeland to discover the harrowing truths of his family history and to find out whether he can share his mother's remarkable willingness to forgive those who destroyed both their lives.
Factual; History
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 29/50 - The People's Revolt
With the party divided, workers and peasants disaffected, and food running out, Russia was teetering on the brink of another revolution, and in March 1921 an event of such colossal importance forced the Bolsheviks to rethink the whole way they exercised power. Martin Sixsmith picks his way through the "crumbling, deserted and rather eerie warren" of massive stone fortifications on an island in the Gulf of Finland: Kronshtadt.
In the 1917 revolution, the Kronshtadt sailors rose up and murdered their tsarist officers and helped storm the Winter Palace. But by 1921, things had changed. The mood was ugly and the sailors' anger was directed against the Bolsheviks. They drew up a manifesto claiming the Communists had lost the trust of the people, demanding the release of political prisoners, freedom of speech and free elections open to all parties. Lenin realised it was make or break for the Bolsheviks and sent Trotsky to crush the Kronshtadt revolt whatever the cost. The fortress eventually fell to the Bolsheviks, and fifteen thousand rebels were taken prisoner, to face immediate execution or a lifetime in the camps. The immediate crisis was over, but Kronshtadt was a warning that Lenin could not ignore.
When he addressed the Party Congress just days after the Kronshtadt rebellion, Lenin promised a new era of milder, more humane government. His New Economic Policy - or NEP as it became known - would soften the dictatorial control of the state, reintroducing some elements of capitalism to try to improve the nation's disastrous economic conditions. In economic terms it was the only way to placate the people, and although it was an ideological bombshell that split the party, it gave Lenin the precious time he needed to consolidate his hold on power.
Factual; Documentaries
Timeshift: 1960 - The Year of the North
This programme sets out to show that the 60s - the most creative decade of the 20th century - began not in swinging London but in smokestack Northern England. It was from there that a new kind of voice was heard: cocky and defiant, working class, affluent, stroppy and sexy.
Novelist Andrew Martin explores how in 1960 the North asserted itself, came out of the closet artistically speaking, abandoned the cloth cap stereotype and in the process liberated itself and Britain as a whole.
The story of how the North went from being economic engine room of the country to cultural powerhouse is told through the work of northern writers such as Alan Sillitoe, Shelagh Delaney, Stan Barstow and Tony Warren. Thanks to their lead in conspicuously kicking over the old traces, by the end of 1960 if you wanted iconoclasm, humour, style and music, you definitely looked to the North.
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm
Factual; Arts, Cultrue and the Media; Documentaries
British Masters
BBC4, 11:00pm-12:00am, 1/3 - We Are Making a New World
In a major re-calibration of 20th-century British paintings, art historian James Fox argues that British painting from 1910 to 1975 was an extraordinary flowering of genius. He predicts that art historians of the future will rank the period alongside the Golden Ages of Renaissance Italy and Impressionist France.
Drawing upon the work of Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland, Francis Bacon, Stanley Spencer and David Hockney, among others, Fox explores why, during the 20th century, British painters were often dismissed for being old-fashioned. He reveals how these artists carefully reconciled tradition and modernity, providing a unique creative tension that now makes the period seem so exciting.
Over the course of the three-part series, Fox presents his theory that this period of artistic excellence was closely linked to a dramatic shift in Britain's fortunes. He suggests that the demise of the British Empire, as much as the two world wars, defines Britain's unique take on modern art: a determination to rediscover and cling on to 'Britishness' while the country's territorial assets and global influence fell away.
In the years immediately before and during the First World War, a radical generation of painters determined to eject Victorian sentimentality and nostalgia from their art pioneered a new style of painting that would capture and make sense of the modern experience. Walter Sickert shocked the public by making the low-lives of Camden Town and a brutal murder the subject of his gaze. Wyndham Lewis and David Bomberg broke with centuries of realist tradition, reducing humanity to cold geometric forms. But as the country descended into war, three painters - Christopher Nevinson, Paul Nash and Stanley Spencer - reconciled what was best of the avant-garde with Britain's rich painterly tradition to create powerful images of war that would speak to us all.
___________________________________________________________
Friday 15 July
Factual; History
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 30/50 - The Death of Lenin and Rise of Stalin
Episode details not yet avaialable.
___________________________________________________________
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Sunday 10 July
Drama
Classic Serial: The History of Titus Groan
BBC Radio 4, 3:00-4:00pm, 1/6
Based on the novels written by Mervyn Peake and on the recently discovered concluding volume written by his widow, Maeve Gilmore, the six one hour episodes chronicle Titus' life from birth, through childhood and adolescence to his decision to renounce his title and embark on an exploration of the alien world beyond the confines of his home. Gormenghast - a vast stronghold of crumbling masonry steeped in immemorial ritual and inhabited with an extraordinary cavalcade of characters including the kitchen boy, Steerpike, who ruthlessly rises to the upper echelons of dynastic power through mischief and murder.
It is a journey in search of identity that eventually takes Titus to a distant island where he encounters the man who is none other than his creator.
Peake's Gormenghast is both a fantasy world conceived by a unique and vivid imagination and a satirical allegory on the fancies, foibles and phobias of the world around us. The History of Titus Groan is broadcast to mark the centenary of Mervyn Peake's birth in July 1911
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Monday 11 July
Factual; History
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 26/50 - Twelve Hours of Democracy
Martin Sixsmith continues his major series tracing 1000 years of Russian history. He begins part two of 'Russia: the Wild East' amidst the whirlwind of the 1917 revolution.
At this great flashpoint in Russia's past, he concludes, as we saw in part one that things seem to change radically, only to revert to old stereotypes with spellbinding regularity. The next five weeks show how these recurring patterns help us understand modern Russia, and modern Russians. Sixsmith quotes Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago which captures the cruelty, chaos and violence of 1917. It starts with positive and hopeful imagery anticipating a new beginning, the new order Russia had long yearned for - 'Freedom dropped out of the sky' writes Pasternak and Sixsmith reflects "It's a feeling I remember myself, from another turning point in Russian history 1991, when I witnessed the defeat of the hardline coup against the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev. For the victorious demonstrators I mingled with on the bullet riddled Moscow streets, freedom did indeed seem to have dropped from the sky".
While Pasternak captures the speed and violence with which expectations of a new world were crushed in 1917 Sixsmith reflects on the pragmatic necessity underlying Lenin's ruthlessness and on the fatal attraction Lenin held for a Russian people who naively thought he was bringing them freedom. In light of later Russian historiography, which continued to revere Lenin even as it denounced Stalin for the crimes of the Soviet system, Sixsmith paints a picture of the first Bolshevik leader. It was he, not Stalin, who founded the one party state, created the feared secret police and the Gulag system of forced labour camps and who first gave the order for summary executions of suspected political opponents.
Factual
Strictly Kosher
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm
The Jewish community in Manchester is a kaleidoscope of tradition, religion and extravagance. This documentary film opens a window into their lives and shows a wide variety of ritual and celebrations.
Strictly Kosher, filmed, produced and directed by Chris Malone, revolves around three families and their friends and paints a colourful picture of the juxtaposition between the many different personalities and levels of religious observance in Manchester’s Jewish community. It offers an insight into lifestyles which range from one extreme – traditional and strict - to the other – modern and extravagant - but are bound together by one faith.
The film follows Bernette Clarke, a very lively and modern Orthodox Jewish mother of three. Bernette talks openly about her faith, explains the traditional approach her family has to the Sabbath and other Jewish festivals, and offers her views on the wider Jewish community.
Joel Lever and his wife Joanne also allow the cameras into their lives. Joel’s family are traditionally Jewish by birth, but he admits they are not very religious. Joel puts his all into his fashion boutique ‘Mon Amie’ which is frequented by the Jewish ladies of Prestwich – by making the Jewish women the talk of the town, he feels he is serving the local community.
83-year-old Jack Aizenberg tells the ultimate rags to riches story. He was just eleven years old at the outbreak of the Second World War and his family were killed in Belzec Extermination camp in 1942 when he was just 14. Against the odds Jack survived and made his way to Manchester, England in 1945. Jack feels that religion is not as important as basic common humanity and does not practice all the requirements of the Jewish faith, but he’s a celebrated survivor venerated by the Jewish community in Manchester. Having made a successful career in the luggage trade, Jack is thrilled to have the money to throw his grandson a lavish Bar Mitzvah – a special moment caught on camera.
Religion & Ethics; Documentary
The Life of Muhammed
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3 - The Seeker
In a ground-breaking first for British television, this three-part series presented by Rageh Omaar charts the life of Muhammad, a man who - for the billion and half Muslims across the globe - is the messenger and final prophet of God.
In a journey that is both literal and historical and beginning in Muhammad's birthplace of Mecca, Omaar investigates the Arabia Muhammad was born into - a world of tribal loyalties and polytheistic religion.
Drawing on the expertise and comment of some of the world's leading academics and commentators on Islam, the programme examines Muhammad's first marriage to Khadijah and how he received the first of the revelations that had such a profound effect both on his life, and on the lives of those closest to him.
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Tuesday 12 July
Factual; History
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 27/50 - The Murder of the Royal Family
The tsarist regime may have toppled, but supporters of the old order wanted revenge. Even before the war with Germany ended, a violent civil war was threatening to erupt. The conflict between Bolshevik Reds and Tsarist Whites was immensely bloody, the atrocities committed by both sides appalling and its consequences terrible. Sixsmith stands at the spot in Yekaterinburg where the last tsar of Russia met his fate and draws on an eyewitness account of the execution by an ad hoc firing squad. Recent research suggests the decision was taken personally by Lenin to prevent Nicholas II being rescued and used as a rallying point for the White cause.
The Red's were surrounded and outnumbered but Lenin stirred up his forces with passionate speeches and Trotsky pulled off an incredible volte face when he routed the White Army stationed at Gatchina 30 miles North of Petrograd. The defence of Petrograd made Trotsky an iconic, terrifying figure, but his own memoirs quoted by Sixsmith, suggest it was a close run thing. Petrograd was renamed in his honour and was called Trotsk until he fell from grace in 1929. Germany's defeat in the World War allowed the Bolsheviks to recoup much of the territory they'd ceded when they withdrew from the war, although the Bolsheviks had to appeal to old fashioned Russian nationalism to defeat the advancing Poles. After peace with Poland Trotsky was able to annihilate the remains of the White Army in the Crimea, immortalised in Bulgakov's play Flight in which two departing White officers discuss the destruction of the old Russia, and the utter failure of the struggle to save her from the Bolshevik yoke.
Factual; History; Documentary
Imagine... Lennon: The New York Years
BBC1, 10:45pm-12:05am
In September 1971, two years after the Beatles split up, John Lennon, dispirited and disillusioned with life in England, escaped across the Atlantic to New York City.
He was tired of the constant scrutiny and criticism at home, and hated the venomous press hounding him and Yoko Ono. He dreamt of starting a peaceful new life in a city he'd come to love. Instead, what followed was more like a rollercoaster ride: a tempestuous period in his relationship, a battle against the US immigration authorities, and a famous wild spell: the 'lost weekend'. Michael Epstein's fascinating film, featuring previously unseen archive footage and unprecedentedly candid interviews with key figures including Yoko Ono, charts this little-known period of Lennon's life - the years leading up to his untimely death.
It's the story of an artist trying to reinvent himself having become one of the most famous musicians in history, an idealist finding a new way to channel his celebrity by trying to change the world through politics. And a talented but vulnerable human being coming to terms with his own demons in the absence of the woman he loves.
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Wednesday 13 July
Factual; History
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 28/50 - The Terror
Gunshots ring out in a dramatic black and white Soviet feature film while Martin Sixsmith stands at the spot where Fanny Kaplan tried to kill Lenin in August 1918. It unleashed the 'Red Terror' in which 100's maybe 1000's of so-called class enemies were executed for no other crime than their social origin.
In the name of Lenin's future Utopia, an estimated half a million people were eliminated in 3 years. Famine, conflict, typhus and economic devastation were bringing the country close to collapse and shortly before he himself starved to death, the philosopher Vasily Razanov wrote presciently: "With a clank, a squeal and a groan, an iron curtain has descended over Russian history". With his regime tottering, Lenin was quick to abandon his promises of freedom, justice and self-determination, replacing them with what came to be known as War Communism - harsh, enslaving and repressive. Forced labour was systematically imposed on the population; industry nationalized, private enterprise banned; food rationed and Russian society transformed into an increasingly militarized dictatorship.
The Bolsheviks rallied the masses - no longer seen as agents of the revolution but as an expendable resource to be exploited in the great experiment of building socialism - to their cause by giving them the licence to plunder and murder the castigated richer peasants or kulaks who had kept the rural economy going. Agriculture regressed, cities starved & a 70,000 strong Peasant Army emerged, (reminiscent of the great historical revolts of Razin and Pugachev) prepared to fight for freedom and the right to the land. It took 100,000 troops to massacre the rebels with poison gas as they hid in the forests. But things were getting to the point where terror alone could not solve the problem.
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Thursday 14 July
Factual; Life Stories; Documentaries
Roger: Genocide Baby
BBC3, 12:15-1:15am
At 16, Roger Nsengiyumva has already made a name for himself as the star of the football movie Africa United. But there's something else about Roger; he was born in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and only survived thanks to the raw courage of his mother. She spent 100 days hiding her newborn baby from the murderous gangs, and then bravely escaped to Britain after seeing her husband, Roger's father, shot dead. This is the story of Roger's return to his homeland to discover the harrowing truths of his family history and to find out whether he can share his mother's remarkable willingness to forgive those who destroyed both their lives.
Factual; History
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 3:45-4:00pm, 29/50 - The People's Revolt
With the party divided, workers and peasants disaffected, and food running out, Russia was teetering on the brink of another revolution, and in March 1921 an event of such colossal importance forced the Bolsheviks to rethink the whole way they exercised power. Martin Sixsmith picks his way through the "crumbling, deserted and rather eerie warren" of massive stone fortifications on an island in the Gulf of Finland: Kronshtadt.
In the 1917 revolution, the Kronshtadt sailors rose up and murdered their tsarist officers and helped storm the Winter Palace. But by 1921, things had changed. The mood was ugly and the sailors' anger was directed against the Bolsheviks. They drew up a manifesto claiming the Communists had lost the trust of the people, demanding the release of political prisoners, freedom of speech and free elections open to all parties. Lenin realised it was make or break for the Bolsheviks and sent Trotsky to crush the Kronshtadt revolt whatever the cost. The fortress eventually fell to the Bolsheviks, and fifteen thousand rebels were taken prisoner, to face immediate execution or a lifetime in the camps. The immediate crisis was over, but Kronshtadt was a warning that Lenin could not ignore.
When he addressed the Party Congress just days after the Kronshtadt rebellion, Lenin promised a new era of milder, more humane government. His New Economic Policy - or NEP as it became known - would soften the dictatorial control of the state, reintroducing some elements of capitalism to try to improve the nation's disastrous economic conditions. In economic terms it was the only way to placate the people, and although it was an ideological bombshell that split the party, it gave Lenin the precious time he needed to consolidate his hold on power.
Factual; Documentaries
Timeshift: 1960 - The Year of the North
This programme sets out to show that the 60s - the most creative decade of the 20th century - began not in swinging London but in smokestack Northern England. It was from there that a new kind of voice was heard: cocky and defiant, working class, affluent, stroppy and sexy.
Novelist Andrew Martin explores how in 1960 the North asserted itself, came out of the closet artistically speaking, abandoned the cloth cap stereotype and in the process liberated itself and Britain as a whole.
The story of how the North went from being economic engine room of the country to cultural powerhouse is told through the work of northern writers such as Alan Sillitoe, Shelagh Delaney, Stan Barstow and Tony Warren. Thanks to their lead in conspicuously kicking over the old traces, by the end of 1960 if you wanted iconoclasm, humour, style and music, you definitely looked to the North.
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm
Factual; Arts, Cultrue and the Media; Documentaries
British Masters
BBC4, 11:00pm-12:00am, 1/3 - We Are Making a New World
In a major re-calibration of 20th-century British paintings, art historian James Fox argues that British painting from 1910 to 1975 was an extraordinary flowering of genius. He predicts that art historians of the future will rank the period alongside the Golden Ages of Renaissance Italy and Impressionist France.
Drawing upon the work of Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland, Francis Bacon, Stanley Spencer and David Hockney, among others, Fox explores why, during the 20th century, British painters were often dismissed for being old-fashioned. He reveals how these artists carefully reconciled tradition and modernity, providing a unique creative tension that now makes the period seem so exciting.
Over the course of the three-part series, Fox presents his theory that this period of artistic excellence was closely linked to a dramatic shift in Britain's fortunes. He suggests that the demise of the British Empire, as much as the two world wars, defines Britain's unique take on modern art: a determination to rediscover and cling on to 'Britishness' while the country's territorial assets and global influence fell away.
In the years immediately before and during the First World War, a radical generation of painters determined to eject Victorian sentimentality and nostalgia from their art pioneered a new style of painting that would capture and make sense of the modern experience. Walter Sickert shocked the public by making the low-lives of Camden Town and a brutal murder the subject of his gaze. Wyndham Lewis and David Bomberg broke with centuries of realist tradition, reducing humanity to cold geometric forms. But as the country descended into war, three painters - Christopher Nevinson, Paul Nash and Stanley Spencer - reconciled what was best of the avant-garde with Britain's rich painterly tradition to create powerful images of war that would speak to us all.
___________________________________________________________
Friday 15 July
Factual; History
Russia: The Wild East
BBC Radio 4, 30/50 - The Death of Lenin and Rise of Stalin
Episode details not yet avaialable.
___________________________________________________________
*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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