Wednesday 16 November 2011

Off-air recordings for week 19-25 November 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 20th November

Factual; Science and Nature; Science and Technology; Documentaries

Frontline Medicine
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/2, Survival

War drives innovation and in this series, Michael Mosley travels from the frontline of war to the frontline of research to uncover the medical breakthroughs that are coming out of current conflicts.

The first episode takes Michael to Camp Bastion hospital in Afghanistan to find out how medics have achieved the highest survival rate in the history of warfare. And in A&E departments in the USA, he looks at the latest medical advances that could save thousands of lives both on and off the battlefield.


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Monday 21st November

Documentaries; Crime and Justice

Real Crime with Mark Austin
ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm, 3/4, Fallen Angel

The case of Hells Angel Gerry Tobin, who was murdered by members of rival motorcycle gang the Outlaws on the M40 while travelling back from the Bulldog Bash festival in August 2007. With access to the police investigation and CCTV footage, as well as interviews with Tobin's family, the programme pieces together the events that led up to his death.


Documentaries

We Need To Talk About Dad

Channel 4, 10:20-11:25pm

The Johnson family appeared to have it all after two decades of happy marriage: professional success, a beautiful house in Kent, flaxen-haired children.  Locals jokingly referred to them as a 'Sunday Supplement Family'. But one day Nick told his wife he had a surprise for, led her blind-folded into the garden, and committed an act of violence far worse than anything they could have imagined.  Henry, who was just 16 at the time, became a witness to the crime.  We Need to Talk About Dad meets the Johnsons as they reunite for Christmas, fulfilling the dreams of the youngest son Felix who - until now - has been sheltered from the events of that day.  Henry's need to confront what happened sees each of them come face to face with the mystery of the attack, and the impact it has had on their lives.


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Tuesday 22nd November 2011

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

John Steinbeck: Voice of America
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Melvyn Bragg travels from Oklahoma to California to examine the enduring legacy of the Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck.

In novels such as The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row, Steinbeck gave voice to ordinary people who were battling poverty, drought and homelessness. Travelling the famous Route 66 from the midwest to the Pacific coast, Melvyn assesses how relevant Steinbeck's work is today. He visits the site of the 1930s dust bowl in Oklahoma; the California orchards where bloody political battles were fought between migrant labourers and growers; and the Monterey coastline where Steinbeck developed his ideas on ecology. Melvyn makes a case for Steinbeck as one of the great voices of American literature.


Factual; Documentaries

Storyville: Deadline - New York Times
BBC4, 10:00-11:30pm

Documentary which goes inside the newsroom at one of the most venerable publishing institutions in the world, the New York Times. Director Andrew Rossi gained unprecedented access to America's pre-eminent news factory during one of its most tumultuous years, as the film follows its struggle to survive in a year where Wikileaks emerged as a household name and other newspapers folded. Led by people such as David Carr - a firebrand journalist and former crack addict - can the foot soldiers of this bastion of old media keep up with the torrent of information that is the world wide web?


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Wednesday 23rd November 2011

Documentaries
 
More 4, 12:50-2.30am
 
Twenty-year-old JoEllen Marsh has always known her family wasn't like other families. She grew up in Pennsylvania with two mothers and a burning curiosity to know more about her anonymous donor father.

When JoEllen discovers a unique online registry that connects donor-conceived children, she tracks down a half-sister in New York. The New York Times picks up the story, and, over time, 12 more half-siblings emerge across the United States.

The New York Times article also falls into the hands of Jeffrey Harrison, living alone with four dogs and a pigeon in a broken-down RV in a Venice Beach car park. In the 1980s, Jeffrey supplemented his meagre incoming by becoming a sperm donor at California Cryobank.

This is a uniquely 21st-century story. The children and their donor dad are reunited as much by modern technology as by old-fashioned coincidence. While the siblings seem to take their ever-expanding family in their stride, Jeffrey is more apprehensive about meeting some of his biological children for the first time.

Funny, moving and surprising, Sperm Donor Unknown raises intriguing questions about our understanding of parenthood, and the strange power of our genetic connections.


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Thursday 24th November 2011


Factual; Documentaries

Close Up: Jackson Pollock - Love and Death On Long Island
BBC4, 11:25pm-12:15am

First transmitted in 1999, this documentary profiles American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock, who died at the age of 44 in a car accident. At the time of his death in 1956, Jackson Pollock was the most celebrated artist in America. His new way of pouring or dripping paint onto the canvas redefined the nature of painting.

Jackson Pollock remains one of America's most controversial artists. "Sometimes I use a brush, but often prefer using a stick. Sometimes I pour the paint straight out of the can. I like to use a dripping fluid paint. A method of painting has a natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them," he says in this programme. It was this desire to find a more direct form of expression that led to Pollock and his contemporaries being called the 'abstract impressionists'.

Pollock led life to the full, but it was a troubled existence which led to a violent death. Jackson Pollock's lover, Ruth Kligman, reflects, "It was a romantic way to die. If he hadn't met Lee and died in that car he would have died a sick man with maybe an enlarged liver, which is not as romantic as dying tragically in a car with a woman he loved." Artist and friend Cile Downs adds, "It's a lot easier to think about the drama of his history than it is to think about what he did in the realm of art." This documentary explores both themes, leaving you to make up your own mind.


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Friday 25th November 2011

News; Current Affairs and Politics

Unreported World
Channel 4, 7:30-8:00pm, episode 18. Trinidad: Guns, Drugs and Secrets

Trinidad has become the murder capital of the Caribbean. While half a million tourists soak up the carnival atmosphere every year, the government has introduced a state of emergency to try to stop the gang violence that results in a murder on average every 17 hours.


At 11pm in the capital Port of Spain the atmosphere changes as a strict curfew comes into force and the normally bustling city becomes a ghost town. Reporter Seyi Rhodes and director Will West are only allowed out because they have obtained a special curfew pass for journalists.

The state of emergency has been in force since August and while the murder rate has halved, the killings are continuing.

The team follows police to Laventille, a notoriously violent area. Police officers tell the team that illegal guns and gangs are the cause of most of the murders.

Under the emergency powers the police and army can enter any property without a warrant and arrest anyone they choose. They've rounded up more than 4000 people in the two months since the start of the state of emergency.

Another neighbourhood, Calvary Hill, has been the scene of scores of murders as gang culture and drug dealing have spiraled out of control over the last decade. During the state of emergency many families here have had their homes raided and their sons arrested.

One mother, Susan, has just seen two of her sons arrested, suspected of being gang members. She doubts the state of emergency will end the violence.

Round the corner in Nelson Street, the team discovers that the drug dealing that has blighted this area is still going on, in spite of the police presence.


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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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