Tuesday 25 October 2011

Off-air recordings for week 29 October - 4 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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Saturday 29th October

Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment; Documentaries

The Secret Life Of Ice
BBC4, 10:25-11:25pm

Ice is one of the strangest, most beguiling and mesmerising substances in the world. Full of contradictions, it is transparent yet it can glow with colour, it is powerful enough to shatter rock but it can melt in the blink of an eye. It takes many shapes, from the fleeting beauty of a snowflake to the multi-million tonne vastness of a glacier and the eeriness of the ice fountains of far-flung moons.

Science writer Dr Gabrielle Walker has been obsessed with ice ever since she first set foot on Arctic sea ice. In this programme she searches out some of the secrets hidden deep within the ice crystal to try to discover how something so ephemeral has the power to sculpt landscapes, to preserve our past and inform our future.


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Sunday 30th October

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries


Tintin's Adventure with Frank Gardiner
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm

Journalist Frank Gardner sets out to trace the first adventure of Tintin, the childhood hero that inspired him to travel and report from the world's hot spots. Frank follows Tintin to Moscow and discovers the influences that created the successful cartoon strip.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Da Vinci: The Lost Treasure
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm

Leonardo da Vinci is considered by many to be one of the greatest artists who ever lived. Yet his reputation rests on only a handful of pictures - including the world's most famous painting, the Mona Lisa.

As the National Gallery in London prepares to open its doors on a remarkable exhibition of Leonardo's work, Fiona Bruce travels to Florence, Milan, Paris and Warsaw to uncover the story of this enigmatic genius - and to New York, where she is given an exclusive preview of a sensational discovery: a new Leonardo.

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Tuesday 1st November

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Imagine... Grayson Perry: The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm

The new season of BBC One's Imagine begins with Grayson Perry – The Tomb Of The Unknown Craftsman. Over a two-year period, Imagine has had exclusive access to the creation of Perry's latest exhibition at the British Museum. This unique portrait of the artist at work sees editor and presenter Alan Yentob delve into Grayson Perry's childhood, join him on a motorbike pilgrimage to Germany and follow him as he explores the artefacts in the British Museum's collection which will inspire his own exhibition.

Throughout this period, Perry has been given free rein to choose items from the British Museum's extensive collection of more than eight million objects to feature in his exhibition alongside his own creations; from his trademark ceramics to sculptures, tapestries and even a working motorbike. The resulting exhibition, The Tomb Of The Unknown Craftsman, is his most ambitious show yet.



Factual

In the Line of Fire
ITV1,  10:35-11:35pm, 1/2

“We are dealing with very dangerous people. We are talking about life or death situations and we are talking about split second decisions.”

Bill Tillbrook, Head of CO19.

“If you think you can go, in this department, without having to pull that trigger, thinking that you are never going to pull that trigger, you are in the wrong job.”
PC Graeme Carling.

Gun and gang crime is plaguing Britain’s major cities and London has been hit the hardest with on average, two people shot every day. For the first time, ITV1 films on the frontline with CO19, the firearms division of the Metropolitan Police, the unit charged with tackling London’s gun criminals.

At a time when gun and gang crime exploded in the capital city and the Met were on trial for the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes, In the Line of Fire’s producers gained unique access to the unit, following its officers for four months at close quarters on live operations. The series provides a rare and compelling insight into a dangerous job, where split second decisions can make the difference between life and death.

In The Line of Fire provides a no holds barred account of the Metropolitan Police’s tough battle against gun crime. Officers are seen at the sharp end of policing, where they are trained to meet force with greater force.

In the Line of Fire films C019 as they respond to life threatening incidents, tackling gang members who show no fear of turning their guns on the police.

C019 officers tell the cameras what it is like to be handed a weapon at the start of every shift and how they approach a task which increasingly pits them against armed teenagers from communities which their experience tells them deeply resent the police.

With the average age of gun criminals in London falling drastically, the stakes in many C019 operations are now significantly raised. Confronting kids armed with guns is becoming commonplace. Searching for the gunman behind a shooting in Tottenham, officers race across London to catch the suspect. They soon apprehend a young man wearing body amour and a single glove. A hand gun is found in the car he is driving and although not involved in the Tottenham shooting, he is later found guilty of being in possession of a gun.

In the Line of Fire also trails C019 Officers racing to help an unarmed police officer stuck in a bullet riddled car, who has been shot at five times. The protracted three hour search for the gunman is fraught with risk, jeopardy and false alarms.

In another incident, where a suspect is suspected of drawing a gun in a nightclub, officers smash the window of his car and drag him from his vehicle. When he fails to comply they fire a 50,000 volt taser stun gun into him, knocking him to the ground. Officers must work on the basis that suspects may be in possession of a gun but on this occasion they fail to find a firearm in the car.

Unprecedented in its access to the Met’s firearms unit, In the Line of Fire provides a unique perspective on the scale and nature of gun crime in the capital today by laying bare the daily work of the officers tasked with leading the fight against it.

“What would you do if a person pointed a gun at you on the street? I’d shoot them.”
Inspector Gareth Reiss, F- Relief CO19.

C019 contains 550 police officers who are all trained to use guns. Every officer accepts that their job may call on them open fire. Inspector Gareth Reiss says: “Officers entering into the department are under no illusion and they are told from day one that at some stage of your service here you will face a life or death situation and it will lead you to make a life or death decision.’ The stakes don’t get any higher than that.” ...

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Wednesday 2nd November

Factual; Documentaries

Timeshift: The North on a Plate
BBC4, 2:15-3:15am

Paris-based cultural historian Andrew Hussey follows his success with France on a Plate by travelling back to his homeland, the north west of England, in search of its lost food culture.

He brings with him the French idea of terroir, a term used by their wine growers and foodies - a belief that a food from a particular area is rendered unique though a particular set of local circumstances including culture and landscape.

As he wanders around the north west, Andrew asks if this rather highbrow foodie term can be applied to common northern grub such as a Blackpool chip or a Wigan pie. As he isn't a foodie he relies on local people to help him out, including three generations of a Wigan biker club and a woman who knows far too much about rhubarb.

In doing so, he uncovers some fascinating cultural history and the role of the Industrial Revolution in defining modern eating habits. And, most importantly, he redefines the concept of terroir by giving it a northern accent.


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Thursday 3rd November

Factual; Documentaries

Life in a Day
BBC2, 9:00-10:30pm

A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.


Factual; Arts TV

Symphony
BBC, 11:25pm-12:35am, 1/4 Genesis to Genius

BBC Four with BBC Radio 3 are to celebrate and reappraise the giant of the orchestral repertoire – the Symphony, through a series of programmes to be broadcast this Autumn.

In the most in-depth appraisal of this artistic form to be broadcast on television, Simon Russell Beale explores how Symphony evolved over the last three centuries as one of the most complex and brilliant musical forms of expression. Looking at the lives and the times of the composers who created these masterpieces, Simon explores how Symphony was shaped by the world around it, and in turn, how it shaped the world.

Broadcast in four movements – Genesis And Genius; Beethoven And Beyond; New Nations And New Worlds; and Revolution And Rebirth – Symphony charts the symphony's emergence from the world of aristocratic privilege, how it accompanied the rise of nations and the fall of empires, and how it became a symbol of freedom, and a tool of totalitarianism. Throughout the series the lives of some of the greatest composers – Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Berlioz, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Sibelius, Copland, Stravinsky and Shostakovich – are brought to life with readings from their letters and diaries, and through key moments and places linking to their symphonic journeys.



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Friday 4th November

News; Current Affairs and Politics;

Unreported World - Russia: Vlad's Army


Unreported World reveals the huge personality cult around Vladimir Putin as they follow the extraordinary actions of the mass youth movement dedicated to protecting the interests of the Prime Minister and Russia.

As Putin announces his intention to return as President, reporter Peter Oborne and director James Jones meet some of the young people who are utterly devoted to him, have seemingly limitless resources, and appear to be above the law.

Outside the American Embassy in Moscow the team films members of Nashi, or 'Our People', as the movement is called, spray-painting 'Russia Forward' in six-foot letters, following criticism of Russia by the American Defence Secretary.

The police step in, but it soon becomes clear who is in charge as Nashi members bully, shove and chase away the officers in an extraordinary display of strength.

Nashi's headquarters are in a £20 million house in central Moscow, decorated with murals of Putin and quotes from his speeches. Oborne joins Nashi's weekly political meeting, which reveals a sinister side to its patriotism as anti-western and racist views come to the fore amongst some members.

Masha Kislitsnya, Nashi's Commissar, describes how her experience growing up as the daughter of a single mother in the 1990s formed the basis for her admiration for Putin.

With the government in collapse following the fall of communism she recalls that her family lived in dire poverty, with the shops often empty of goods. Everything changed for the better, she says, when Putin took over...
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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 20 October 2011

Off-air recordings for week 22-29 October 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 23rd October 2011

Factual; Histories; Documentaries

Britain's Park Story
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm

The British invented them for the world, and they have been described as 'the lungs of the city - historian Dan Cruickshank reveals the history of our public parks.  Cruickshank travels the country to discover the evolution of the nation's urban public parks, a story of class, civic pride, changing fashions in sport and recreation which helps re-evaluate the amazing assets they are.  From their civic heyday in the 19th century to the neglect of the 1980s and their resurgence today, the documentary is a fascinating and entertaining history of an often-overlooked great British invention.


Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment

Tales from the National Parks
BBC4, 11:20pm-12.20am, 1/3 The Lake District

The National Parks are Britain's most treasured landscapes, but they are increasingly becoming battlefields. They were designated 60 years ago as places for everyone, but is that still the case? In this series the award-winning filmmaker Richard Macer spent a year amid conflicts in three different parks, on a journey to discover who they are really for.

In each park (the other two are the Peak District and Loch Lomond) the stories are very different, but there is something that unites them all - fiercely divided communities who are prepared to fight in order to preserve their right to enjoy the countryside. In each film Macer has secured access to the National Park Authority - an organisation which looks after the landscapes and decides upon planning matters. In all these stories the Park Authorities have a key role to play in trying to find amicable solutions to the problems which confront them.

In the Lake District, entrepreneur Mark Weir wants to build a giant zip-wire ride from the top of a beautiful, remote mountain. But what chance does it have of getting permission when there are over 400 objectors to it? Tragically, Mark is killed in an accident during filming and never lives to see if his zip-wire becomes a reality.


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Monday 24th October 2011

News

Panorama: Cops Behaving Badly
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm

What happens when the police fail in their sworn duty to protect life, when they get it wrong or when police officers themselves break the law? Richard Bilton investigates cops who behave badly, and discovers just how many cases are dealt with by the police themselves behind closed doors. He asks why, in some cases, police officers are allowed to simply walk away.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Life Stories

I Never Tell Anybody Anything: The Life and Art of Edward Burra
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm

Edward Burra (1905-76) was one of the most elusive British artists of the 20th century. Long underrated, his reputation has been suddenly rehabilitated, with the first major retrospective of his work for 25 years taking place in 2011 and record-breaking prices being paid for his work at auction.

In this film, the first serious documentary about Edward Burra made for television, leading art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the remarkable story of his life. It follows Burra from his native town of Rye to the jazz clubs of prohibition-era New York, to the war-torn landscapes of the Spanish Civil War and back to England during the Blitz. It shows how Burra's increasingly disturbing and surreal work deepened and matured as he experienced at first hand some of the most tragic events of the century. Through letters and interviews with those who knew him, it paints an entertaining portrait of a true English eccentric.


Factual; Science and Nature; Environment

The Secret Life of Waves
BBC4, 11:00pm-12:00am

Documentary-maker David Malone delves into the secrets of ocean waves. In an elegant and original film he finds that waves are not made of water, that some waves travel sideways and that the sound of the ocean comes not from water but from bubbles. Waves are not only beautiful but also profoundly important, and there is a surprising connection between the life cycle of waves and the life of human beings.


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Thursday 26th October 2011

Factual; Politics; Documentaries

The Future State of Welfare with John Humphrys
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

In February 2011 David Cameron announced a welfare reform bill he described as the most fundamental, ambitious and radical since the benefit system began. The cost of benefit, he said, had gone up by nearly £60bn in the last decade. Critics say that the welfare state is in crisis.

And yet at the same time, there's resounding support among the British public for welfare. In an Ipsos MORI poll commissioned for this programme, 92% of adults agreed with the statement that it is important to have a benefits system to provide a safety net for anyone that needs it.

John Humphrys travels the country to talk to the people with the most to lose: people on incapacity benefit; the long-term unemployed; people on housing benefit; lone parents. Are they prepared for the harsher future ahead? He returns to the area where he was born - Splott in Cardiff - to show how attitudes to work and welfare have changed in his lifetime. When he was growing up, a man who didn't work was regarded as a pariah; today, one in four of the working-age population in Splott is on some form of benefit. John also visits America, where 15 years ago they embarked on what has been called a 'welfare revolution'. Is this more punitive model where the UK heading? He looks at specific reforms the Government has in mind or has begun already.

Humphrys concludes that the public don't like what they see as a growing sense of entitlement among some groups claiming benefits, and politicians respond to the public mood. He argues that there is strong consensus across political divides, and that reform would edge the UK back towards the original Beveridge vision of welfare.


Factual; Science and Nature; Environment


The Secret Life of Ice
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm

Ice is one of the strangest, most beguiling and mesmerising substances in the world. Full of contradictions, it is transparent yet it can glow with colour, it is powerful enough to shatter rock but it can melt in the blink of an eye. It takes many shapes, from the fleeting beauty of a snowflake to the multi-million tonne vastness of a glacier and the eeriness of the ice fountains of far-flung moons.

Science writer Dr Gabrielle Walker has been obsessed with ice ever since she first set foot on Arctic sea ice. In this programme she searches out some of the secrets hidden deep within the ice crystal to try to discover how something so ephemeral has the power to sculpt landscapes, to preserve our past and inform our future.


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Friday 27th October 2011

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Music; Rock and Indie


Upside Down: The Creation Records Story
BBC4, 9:00-10:40pm

Millions of sales on both sides of the Atlantic, near bankruptcy, pills, thrills, spats, prats, successes, excesses, pick-me-ups and breakdowns - all spiralled together to create some of the most defining music of the 20th century. This is the definitive and fully-authorised documentary of the highs and lows of the UK's most inspired and dissolute independent record label - Creation Records. Over 25 years after Creation's first records, it follows the story from the days of the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Primal Scream and Teenage Fanclub to the Boo Radleys, the Super Furry Animals and of course Oasis, among many, many more. The label's enigmatic founder Alan McGee talks candidly of the trail which led from humble beginnings in Glasgow, via drink and drug dependency to being wined and dined at No 10 Downing Street by Tony Blair.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Music; Rock and Indie


Creation at the BBC
BBC4, 10:40-11:00pm

A trip through the BBC archives from programmes such as Whistle Test, the Oxford Road Show, Top of the Pops and Later with Jools Holland to find some rare and some familiar footage of the bands who were on one of the UK's most seminal and important record labels, Creation Records. There's footage of the Jesus and Mary Chain on Whistle Test in 1985, and from the same year comes The Loft on the Oxford Road Show. The Loft morphed into Pete Astor's next project, the Weather Prophets, who performed on the Whistle Test later that year. My Bloody Valentine nearly bankrupted Creation but produced one of the label's flagship albums, Isn't Anything, while Slowdive were front runners in the 'shoegazing' scene. The 1990s heralded the halcyon days of Creation with the release of Primal Scream's Screamadelica and Oasis signing to the label in 1993. Thus followed a string of chart successes for Creation with Ride, the Boo Radleys, Super Furry Animals, Teenage Fanclub and, of course, Oasis.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Music; Rock and Indie


Omnibus: Alan McGee, the Man who Discovered Oasis
BBC4, 11:40pm-12:30am

Millions of sales on both sides of the Atlantic, near bankruptcy, pills, thrills, spats, prats, successes, excesses, pick-me-ups and breakdowns - all spiralled together to create some of the most defining music of the 20th century. This is the definitive and fully-authorised documentary of the highs and lows of the UK's most inspired and dissolute independent record label - Creation Records. Over 25 years after Creation's first records, it follows the story from the days of the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Primal Scream and Teenage Fanclub to the Boo Radleys, the Super Furry Animals and of course Oasis, among many, many more. The label's enigmatic founder Alan McGee talks candidly of the trail which led from humble beginnings in Glasgow, via drink and drug dependency to being wined and dined at No 10 Downing Street by Tony Blair.

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Saturday 29th October 2011

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Music; Rock and Indie

Do It Yourself: The Story of Rough Trade
BBC4, 12:30-2:00am

The Rough Trade story begins more than thirty years ago on 20th February 1976. Britain was in the grip of an IRA bombing campaign; a future prime minister was beginning to make her mark on middle England, where punk was yet to run amok; and a young Cambridge graduate called Geoff Travis opened a new shop at 202 Kensington Park Road, just off Ladbroke Grove in West London. The Rough Trade shop sold obscure and challenging records by bands like American art-rockers Pere Ubu, offering an alternative to the middle-of-the-road rock music that dominated the music business.

In January 1977, when a record by Manchester punk band Buzzcocks appeared in the shop, Rough Trade found itself in the right place at the right time to make an impact far beyond that of a neighbourhood music store. When Spiral Scratch was released in 1977, the idea of putting out a single without the support of an established record company was incredible. But Rough Trade was to become the headquarters of a revolt against this corporate monopoly - it was stocking records by bands inspired by the idea that they could do it themselves.

But selling a few independent records over the counter was not going to change the world. Early independent labels had to hand over their distribution to the likes of EMI or CBS. But one man at Rough Trade challenged that monopoly. Richard Scott joined Rough Trade in 1977 and became the architect of a grand scheme that was nothing short of revolutionary: independent nationwide distribution.


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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.

Wednesday 12 October 2011

Off-air recordings 8-14 October 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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Monday 17th October

Documentaries; Science; Technology

Brave New World with Stephen Hawking
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/5 - Machines

The team showcase breakthroughs in technology and engineering that are creating a new generation of machines. Mark Evans fuses his brain with a computer in Switzerland to test a new breed of machine.

Kathy Sykes hits the streets of San Francisco to have the ride of her life as she experiences the future of transport in a driverless car. In Italy Jim Alei-Khalili comes face to face with a remarkable, baby-like robot called iCub, which learns like a child.

Joy Reidenberg discovers the extraordinary exoskeleton that can make the paralysed walk and give one man the strength of three. In the Canary Islands Maggie Aderin-Pocock visits one of the world's biggest telescopes, where they're searching for new planets in the furthest reaches of the universe - planets that we could one day colonise.


Documentaries; Factual; Science and Nature

Origins of Us
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3, Bones

Origins of Us tells the story of our species, homo sapiens. In every one of our bodies is the evidence of how we evolved away from our ape cousins to become the adaptable, successful species we are today.

Anatomist and physical anthropologist Dr Alice Roberts reveals the key adaptations in our body that has contributed to our extra-ordinary success. Far from being inevitable, the evolution of our species is a product of pure chance. And with each anatomical advantage comes a cost, which many of us are still paying today. Bad backs, painful childbirth, impacted wisdom teeth are all a by-product of our evolutionary success.

This is a journey through your own body, 6 million years and 300 000 generations of our family, from a tree dwelling ape in the forests of Africa, to you and the six billion other humans on Earth today.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Life Stories

Colouring Light: Brian Clarke - An Artist Apart
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm

Brian Clarke is one of Britain's hidden treasures. A painter of striking large canvases and the designer of some of the most exciting stained glass in the world today, he is better known abroad - especially in Germany and Switzerland - than in his own country, and more widely recognised among critics, collectors and gallery owners than he is by the general public.

In this visually striking documentary portrait made by award-winning filmmaker Mark Kidel, Clarke returns to Lancashire where he grew up as a prodigy in a working-class family and charts his meteoric rise during the punk years and eventual success as a stained glass artist working with some of the world's great architects, including Norman Foster and Arata Isozaki - and producing spectacular work in Japan, Brazil, the USA and Europe.

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Tuesday 18th October


Documentaries; Crime and Justice; Factual; Politics

This World: Spain's Stolen Babies
Spain is reeling from an avalanche of allegations of baby theft and baby trafficking. The trade began at the end of the Spanish civil war and continued for 50 years - hundreds of thousands of babies are thought to have been traded by nuns, priests and doctors up to the 1990s. This World reveals the impact of Spain's stolen baby scandal through the eyes of the children and parents who were separated at birth, and who are now desperate to find their relatives.

Exhumations of the supposed graves of babies and positive DNA tests are proof that baby theft has happened. Across Spain, people are queuing up to take a DNA test and thousands of Spaniards are asking 'Who am I?'

Katya Adler has been meeting the heartbroken mothers who are searching for the children whom they were told died at birth, as well as the stolen and trafficked babies who are now grown up and searching for their biological relatives and their true identities.


Factual; Families and Relationships; Health and Wellbeing; Life Stories;

The Kid's Speech
BBC1, 10:35-11:25pm

Moving and uplifting documentary following the stories of three children who live with a stammer. Eleven-year-olds Reggie and William, and 14-year-old Bethan, are determined to improve their speech. Along with their parents, they embark on a unique, intensive course at the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children.

Over two emotional weeks, the kids open up about their fears and frustrations whilst learning techniques to help with their fluency. This is also a significant journey for the parents, who learn more about themselves and their children than they could have imagined.

Michael Palin's father was a severe stammerer, and Michael speaks movingly about the condition and how it affected his family.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Performances and Events

RTS Huw Wheldon Lecture 2011: TV Modern Father of History
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:00am

Bettany Hughes uses the 2011 Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture to argue that history on television is thriving and enjoying a new golden age. She explores why programme makers should look to the ancients for inspiration, how television can become an active player in the historical process itself and why people are looking to the past to help navigate a complex modern world.


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Wednesday 19th October 2011

News

Panorama Special: Britain's Child Beggars
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm

Meet 'Alice'. She is a four-year-old child out on the streets of London begging hours on end, day in, day out. 'Alice' is just one of Britain's Gypsy child beggars, and she can earn hundreds of pounds a day.

A special Panorama investigation uncovers the truth about these children. Reporter John Sweeney tracks down the begging gangs to luxury homes in Romania, where he confronts the adults forcing the children to beg.


Factual; Documentaries; Science and Nature

Faster Than The Speed of Light?
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

Last month an international group of scientists made an astonishing claim - they had detected particles that seemed to travel faster than the speed of light. It was a claim that contradicted more than a hundred years of scientific orthodoxy. Suddenly there was talk of all kinds of bizarre concepts, from time travel to parallel universes.

So what is going on? Has Einstein's famous theory of relativity finally met its match? Will we one day be able to travel into the past or even into another universe?

In this film, Professor Marcus du Sautoy explores one of the most dramatic scientific announcements for a generation. In clear, simple language he tells the story of the science we thought we knew, how it is being challenged, and why it matters.



Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Discussion and Talk

Friday Night, Saturday Morning
BBC4, 10:30-11:35pm

Talk show, hosted by Tim Rice and featuring a discussion about Monty Python's Life of Brian, which had been banned by local councils and caused protests. Guests are John Cleese, Michael Palin, Malcolm Muggeridge, the bishop of Southwark Arthur Stockwood, Norris McWhirter and Paul Jones & the Blues Band.

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Thursday 20th October 2011

Drama

Holy Flying Circus
BBC4, 11:30pm-1:00am

In 1979, Monty Python made Life of Brian and the debate about what is an acceptable subject for comedy was blown wide open. This is a fantastical re-imagining of the build-up to the release of the film and the controversy it caused.


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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.

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Off-air recordings for week 8-14 October 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 8th October

Factual; History; Documentaries

How The World Got Mixed Up
BBC2, 9:45-11:15pm, Mixed Britannia Season

One of the very few universal laws of history is this: whenever and wherever people of different races have been brought together they have always mixed. For most of human history the power of sex managed to undermine the power of race. The incredible level of racial inter-mixing that now characterises life in 21st-century Britain is not a uniquely modern phenomenon, but a return to the traditions of the past.

This film will re-access the meaning of the great historic force that first brought the races together - imperialism. It will tell the surprising and positive story of how, throughout much of history, the races of the world's empires mixed together unquestioningly.

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Sunday 9th October

Factual; History

City Beneath The Waves: Pavlopetri
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm

Just off the southern coast of mainland Greece lies the oldest submerged city in the world. A city that thrived for 2000 years during the time that saw the birth of Western civilisation. An international team of experts uses the latest technology to investigate the site and digitally raise it from the seabed, to reveal the secrets of Pavlopetri.

Led by underwater archaeologist Dr Jon Henderson, the team use the latest in cutting-edge science and technology to prise age-old secrets from the complex of streets and stone buildings that lie less than five metres below the surface. State-of-the-art CGI helps to raise the city from the seabed revealing, for the first time in 3,500 years, how Pavlopetri would once have looked and operated.

Jon Henderson is leading this ground-breaking project in collaboration with a team from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, and Nic Flemming, the man whose hunch led to the intriguing discovery of Pavlopetri in 1967. Also working alongside the archaeologists are a team from the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, who aim to take underwater archaeology into the 21st century.

The team scour the sea floor for any artefacts that have eroded from the sands. The site is littered with thousands of fragments, each providing valuable clues to the everyday lives of the people of Pavlopetri. From the buildings to the trade goods to the everyday tableware, every artefact provides a window into a long-forgotten world.

Together these precious relics provide us with a window on a time when Pavlopetri would have been at its height, showing us what life was like in this distant age, and revealing how this city marks the start of Western civilisation.


Factual; Documentary

Road to Memphis
Yesterday, 10:30pm-12:30am

4th April, 1968: The world mourns the death of the inspirational Martin Luther King. Follow the dramatic timeline of events leading up to his murder and the hunt for his killer.


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Monday 10th October

News

Panorama - BNP: The Fraud Exposed
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm

Nick Griffin's British National Party, already under investigation for breaches of electoral law, is facing fresh allegations of corruption. Panorama uncovers new evidence of financial documents being falsified and fabricated in order to deceive the Electoral Commission. The programme also has evidence of the BNP's failure to declare major donations to the party.

As Darragh MacIntyre reports, the BNP, which is better known for its controversial views on race, is in debt and according to its own published accounts appears to be technically insolvent.


Factual; Families and Relationships; Documentaries

Twincredibles
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

There's only a slim chance that black and white parents will have twins of different skin colour, but as one in ten children born in the UK is now mixed race, this genetic quirk is going to become increasingly common. Twincredibles follows five sets of twins, from toddlers through to adults, to create a surprising and compelling story about the journey of mixed race Britain.

The stories of all these twins throw a new and fascinating light on how brothers and sisters who are similar in so many other ways lead different lives because of their skin colour. The experiences don't always match the stereotype. For teenage boys James and Daniel, growing up in Eltham South East London, it was the whiter looking twin Daniel who suffered racial abuse, whilst darker twin James was left alone.

Travelling through the experiences of each set of twins, the film unpeels the impact this accident of their birth has on how they see themselves and how the outside world views them. Living in diverse locations across England to Scotland, the twins tell their stories in their own words, to paint an honest and sometimes hard-hitting picture of race in modern Britain.


Factual

Exposure: Heart Hospital
ITV1, 10:35-11-35pm

A one-hour documentary for ITV1’s new ‘Exposure’ strand, investigates the worsening crisis in the availability of donor hearts in Britain.

With intimate access to the heart transplant team at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital – one of the largest transplant centres in Europe – this revealing film follows three patients and their families as they find themselves on the long and uncertain road towards a life-saving operation, and provides a rare opportunity to witness complex heart transplant surgery.

The stories of these three men reveal the human impact of the critical shortage of donor hearts. As leading heart surgeon Professor Robert Bonser says: “Living under that shadow of uncertainty is a haunting experience”.

Professor Bonser has led the heart transplant service at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for 21 years, During his career, he's performed more than fifteen thousand heart operations, including 250 heart transplants. He has seen the number of transplants carried out in the UK drop by two thirds to less than 100 each year.

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Tuesday 11th October

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media

Ceramics: A Fragile History
BBC4, 3:30-4:30pm, 1/3

Ceramics are where art meets function - one of our oldest and most fundamental art forms, that sits at the centre of our homes. The first film in this three-part series looks at a history of domestic pottery in Britain from Tudor times onwards, tracing the evolution of its different techniques and styles, and examining what our pots can tell us in intimate detail how preceeding generations lived and saw themselves.

Whether it's for celebrating birth, marriage and death (our own or royal), eating and drinking or showing the world our social status, ceramics contain more than just our tea or coffee - they contain something of our lives, our social DNA, and reveal a lot about our taste and habits as a nation. They become, in effect, snapshots in clay.


Factual; Health and Wellbeing; Documentaries

Me, My Sex and I
BBC1, 10:35-11:25pm

What is the truth about the sexes? It is a deeply-held assumption that every person is either male or female; but many people are now questioning whether this belief is correct.

This compelling and sensitive documentary unlocks the stories of people born neither entirely male nor female. Conditions like these have been known as 'intersex' and shrouded in unnecessary shame and secrecy for decades. It's estimated that DSDs (Disorders of Sexual Development) are, in fact, as common as twins or red hair - nearly one in 50 of us.

The programme features powerful insights from people living with these conditions, and the medical teams at the forefront of the field, including clinical psychologist Tiger Devore, whose own sex when born was ambiguous.

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Wednesday 12th October

Learning; Secondary

Witness: Immigration UK
BBC2, 4:00-5:00pm

The programme uses first person testimony and clips from the BBC archive to examine immigration into the UK since 1948.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media

Treasures of Chinese Porcelain
BBC4, 1:00-2:00am

In November 2010, a Chinese vase unearthed in a suburban semi in Pinner sold at auction for £43 million - a new record for a Chinese work of art. Why are Chinese vases so famous and so expensive? The answer lies in the European obsession with Chinese porcelain that began in the 16th century and by the 18th century was a full-blown craze that swept up kings, princes and the emerging middle classes alike.

In this documentary Lars Tharp, the Antiques Roadshow expert and Chinese ceramics specialist, sets out to explore why Chinese porcelain was so valuable then - and still is now. He goes on a journey to parts of China closed to Western eyes until relatively recently. Lars travels to the mountainside from which virtually every single Chinese export vase, plate and cup began life in the 18th century - a mountain known as Mount Gaolin, from whose name we get the word kaolin, or china clay. He sees how the china clay was fused with another substance, mica, that would turn it into porcelain - a secret process concealed from envious Western eyes. For a time porcelain became more valuable than gold - it was a substance so fine, so resonant and so strong that it drove Europeans mad trying to copy it.

Carrying his own newly-acquired vase, Lars uncovers the secrets of China's porcelain capital, Jingdezhen, before embarking on the arduous 400-mile journey to the coast that every piece of export porcelain would once have travelled. He sees how the trade between China and Europe not only changed our idea of what was beautiful - by introducing us to the idea of works of art we could eat off - but also began to affect the whole tradition of Chinese aesthetics too, as the ceramicists of Jingdezhen sought to meet the European demand for porcelain decorated with family coats of arms, battle scenes or even erotica.

The porcelain fever that gripped Britain drove conspicuous consumption and fuelled the Georgian craze for tea parties. Today the new emperors - China's rising millionaire class - are buying back the export wares once shipped to Europe. The vase sold in Pinner shows that the lure of Chinese porcelain is as compelling as ever.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media


Britain's Most Fragile Treasure
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Historian Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of a centuries-old masterpiece in glass. At 78 feet in height, the famous East Window at York Minster is the largest medieval stained-glass window in the country, and it was the creative vision of a single artist - a mysterious master craftsman called John Thornton, one of the earliest named English artists.

The East Window has been called England's Sistine Chapel. Within its 311 stained-glass panels is the entire history of the world, from the first day to the Last Judgment, and yet it was made 100 years before Michelangelo's own masterpiece. The scale of Thornton's achievement is revealed as Dr Ramirez follows the work of a highly-skilled conservation team at York Glaziers Trust. They have dismantled the entire window as part of a five-year project to repair centuries of damage and restore it to its original glory.

It's a unique opportunity for Dr Ramirez to examine Thornton's greatest work at close quarters, to discover details that would normally be impossible to see and to reveal exactly how medieval artists made images of such delicacy and complexity using the simplest of tools.

The East Window of York Minster is far more than a work of artistic genius, it's a window onto the medieval world and the medieval mind - telling us who were once were and who we still are, all preserved in the most fragile medium of all.

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Friday 14th October

News; Documentaries

Dispatches: Britain's Rubbish
Channel 4, 3:00-4:00pm

Dispatches lifts the lid on Britain's bins and asks what the plan is to tackle the country's growing rubbish problem. Reporter Morland Sanders travels the UK in the wake of the government's Waste Policy Review to find out about bin collections, litter, excessive packaging and Britons' secret bin habits.

He finds householders angry about their bins not being collected every week and fly-tipping setting resident against resident. He asks whether we can do more to help reduce the rubbish problem ourselves and sets a family the challenge of living without a bin for a fortnight. Can they really recycle everything?  On the high street, he questions whether we are simply sold too much packaging with the things we buy, making us throw far too much away, and sifts through litter to see who should be doing more to keep Britain tidy.

He also talks to the people who collect, sort and recycle our waste and discovers what happens to our paper and plastics once they are collected. Does profit win out over green considerations? And he investigates whether the waste companies are really solving our rubbish problem.

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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.