Wednesday 31 October 2012
Off-air recordings for week 3-9 November 2012
Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
*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 3rd November
Documentaries
The Girl Who Became Three Boys
More 4, 9:00-10:00pm
Twenty-one-year-old Gemma Barker from Staines is serving 30 months in prison for fraud and sexual assault.
Over the course of several months Gemma invented and impersonated three different boys - 'Aaron', 'Luke' and 'Connor' - and under these separate guises seduced two teenage girls.
This film tells the extraordinary and chilling story through the personal accounts of Gemma's victims.
Aaron, Luke and Connor each had their own Facebook page, email address and mobile phone number, and through emotional manipulation, both as their friend Gemma and as the three 'boys', Gemma created a complex set of identities and relationships in order to get close to 18-year-olds Jessica Sayers and 'Alice', who speak frankly about their experiences.
The Girl Who Became Three Boys also explores Gemma Barker's possible motivations for her bizarre, criminal behaviour.
This is a story of deception, abuse and the damaging consequences of misusing modern social networking on the lives of two innocent teenage girls.
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Sunday 4th November
Factual; News
This World - Obama: What Happened To Hope?
BBC2, 7:30-8:30pm
Andrew Marr looks back at Barack Obama's first term in office. When Obama stood before a crowd of nearly two million people, preparing to take the oath of office, it was a moment that many never believed they would see: the inauguration of a black American president. Now, through informal and candid interviews with some of Obama's own White House staff and those who have worked closely with him, Andrew Marr assesses how far this presidency has lived up to the huge expectations.
Administration insiders like Austan Goolsbee, the economics professor who advised Obama through the worst economic crisis since the great depression, and Former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs PJ Crowley recount the stories behind the moments that have defined a tumultuous presidency, revealing how this extraordinary orator who entered the White House with a flourish of bold idealism and grand promises to change the ways of Washington has ultimately been replaced by a very different man.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Andrew Marr's History of the World
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 7/8 - Age of Industry
In the seventh episode of this landmark series charting the story of human civilisation, Andrew Marr tells how Britain's Industrial Revolution created the modern world.
The old agricultural order of aristocratic landowners, serfs and peasant farmers was replaced by a new world of machines, cities and industrialists. Across the world, many resisted this sweeping change. From China to America, Russia to Japan, bitter battles were fought between the modernisers and those who rejected the new way of life.
In Europe, new industrial powers competed with each other to create vast empires which dominated the world. But this intense competition would lead to the industrial-scale slaughter and destruction of the First World War.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Michael Wood: The Story of India
BBC4, 11:35pm-12:35am
Michael Wood traces India in the days of the Roman Empire. In Kerala the spice trade opened India to the world, whilst gold and silk bazaars in the ancient city of Madurai were a delight for visiting Greek traders. From the deserts of Turkmenistan, Michael travels down the Khyber Pass to Pakistan to discover a forgotten Indian Empire that opened up the Silk Road and at Peshawar built a lost Wonder of the World.
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Monday 5th November
Factual; Documentaries
Storyville -JFK's Road to the Whitehouse: Primary 1960
BBC4, 2:35-3:30am
Storyville: 'A new kind of reporting, a new form of history', Robert Drew promised John F Kennedy. He was proposing a revolutionary, small camera filming live with Kennedy day and night for nearly a week during the climax of his 1960 Wisconsin presidential primary run against Hubert Humphrey. Capturing JFK's rock-star presence, this documentary grants viewers unprecedented access into the world of a young politician and his glamorous wife as they campaigned across the Wisconsin landscape, building dramatic tension as the candidates await the ballot.
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
Digital Human
BBC Radio 4, 4:30-5:00pm, 6/7
Aleks Krotoski explores the digital world.
News
Panorama: Gambling Nation
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm
Even in recession-hit Britain, the gambling industry is still making a profit - £5.6 billion last year. With casino-style gambling now available day or night at the touch of a button in our homes and on our phones, Panorama explores its popularity... and reveals a darker side.
Reporter Sophie Raworth hears from those who have found their lives spiralling out of control, and from industry insiders who say violence and frustration, linked to fast-paced high-stake gambling machines, are increasing in our high street betting shops. Panorama goes undercover in some of Britain's bookies to test those claims.
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Tuesday 6th November
Factual; History, Documentaries
Britain on Film
BBC4, 8:00-9:0pm, 1/4 - A Woman's Place
In 1959 Britain's biggest cinema company, the Rank Organisation, decided to replace its newsreels with a series of short, quirky, topical documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. For the next ten years, Look at Life chronicled - on high-grade 35mm colour film - the changing face of British society, industry and culture. Britain on Film draws upon the 500 films in this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into what became a pivotal decade in modern British history. The series shows how Look at Life reflected the radical shifts in the position of women in British society, and shows how the country adapted to the new demands and expectations of women at home, in the workplace and at play.
Factual; Documentaries
Food in England: The Lost World of Dorothy Hartley
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm
As part of the Food, Glorious Food season, historian Lucy Worsley journeys across England and Wales in search of Dorothy Hartley, the long-forgotten writer of what is today considered to be one of the masterpieces of food writing, Food in England, published in 1954.
Hartley, these days a lost figure and forgotten author, spent her life between the two world wars travelling the length and breadth of the country in search of a rapidly vanishing rural Britain. She had the imagination to document and record, to photograph and illustrate (she was an accomplished artist and photographer as well as writer) the ways of life and the craft skills of farmers, labourers, village craftspeople, and itinerant workers. She recorded the way they worked, the tools they used, the techniques they adopted and the food they produced and prepared.
Most of Hartley's writing is out of print and only half-remembered, but one of her published works, her magnum opus Food in England, was first published in 1954 and these days is considered to be a masterpiece on the subject of the history of what we ate.
Lucy Worsley traces the life of Dorothy Hartley (Dee to her friends) to try to discover something about the woman behind the book, what she was like, why she wrote in the way she did about the British rural landscape between the wars and why Food in England has had such a growing reputation amongst the hundreds of books published about food in Britain each year.
Factual; Arts, Culutre and the Media; Documentaries
Imagine... Ian Rankin and The Case of the Disappearing Detective
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm
Britain's most successful crime writer, Ian Rankin, invites imagine... to get up close and personal and follow him as he writes his next novel.
Maverick cop DI John Rebus propelled Rankin to fame as an author, but having retired his most famous creation five years ago, Rankin is now faced with a dilemma: what will he write about next? Through Rankin's own video diary footage, we see him wrestle with his demons and numerous unfolding plots. Will they lead to a dead end?
Alan Yentob and imagine... were there on the first day of writing and on the very day Ian Rankin finished the novel. Tune in to find out the result.
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Wednesday 7th November
Documentaries
The Great British Property Scandal: Every Empty Counts
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm
George Clarke invites you to join the campaign to fill Britain's empty homes.
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Friday 9th November
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
Attenborough's Ark: A Natural World Special
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm
David Attenborough chooses the 10 endangered animals from around the world that he’d most like to save from extinction. Tigers and pandas hit the headlines but for David it’s the unusual ones that interest him.
In Attenborough’s Ark, David explains why these animals are so important, and highlights the ingenious work of biologists across the world who are helping to keep them alive.
His top 10 includes Darwin’s frog - the only frog in the world where the male gives birth to its young. There is also the olm - a salamander that can live to a hundred.
There’s also the Sumatran rhino - the smallest and most threatened species of rhino. David tells the story of the first-ever Sumatran rhino to be born in captivity in Asia. After years of failed attempts, a male Sumatran rhino was born at Cincinnati zoo. He was sent to Sumatra, where he was matched up with a native female. The result was a historic baby, which gives hope to the rest of the species.
In Jersey, David introduces his favourite monkey - the mischievous black lion tamarin - which is being bred successfully at Durrell Wildlife Park.
David’s other unusual 'passengers' include the solenodon - an ancient mammal; the northern quoll – a charismatic marsupial at risk from cane toads; marvellous spatuletail - a rare hummingbird; the Sunda pangolin, whose scaly armour is made of keratin; Priam’s birdwing butterfly - the largest on Earth; and Venus’s flower basket – a marine animal made entirely from silica.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Foreign Bodies
BBC Radio 4, 9:00-10:00, 2/3 - Omnibus edition
PD James' Adam Dalgliesh and Ruth Rendell's Reginald Wexford first appeared in novels written in 1962 and 1964. Mark Lawson continues his series about the way crime fiction has depicted modern European history by looking at the shifts in UK society they have encountered from rural racism and road rage to fears about changes in the Church of England and the rise of an environmental movement.
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Wednesday 24 October 2012
Off-air recordings for week 27th October - 2nd November 2012
Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
*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 27th October
Crime; Documentaries
True Stories: America's Serial Killer
More 4, 9:00-10:00pm
In one of the worst serial killings in American history, over just two years police have discovered 11 bodies dumped on an isolated stretch of coastal road in Long Island, New York, leading to a wealthy gated community.
Four of the dead were sex workers who had advertised online, as part of a rapidly growing internet sex trade worth millions. The killer is still at large.
With access to several people close to the case and to the victims, this True Stories film pieces together a crime that exposes a darker side of middle-class, white America. The film includes compelling interviews with families of the victims and of another online escort, Shannan Gilbert, who was found nearby, and first-hand accounts from witnesses, senior police and officials close to the case.
Examining how the sex trade has increasingly moved online, the film sheds light on a world where clients can now search for individuals from the privacy of their home, and, most importantly for some, anonymously.
The most highly prized commodity in this online industry is the ordinary American girl, like many of the victims of the Long Island serial killer, who were cashing in on this seemingly straightforward, lucrative operation in order to make ends meet or earn fast money.
Shannan's fate was one of the biggest mysteries of this crime. Her disappearance triggered the man-hunt and unearthing of this gruesome, high-profile case. But when her body was finally discovered in December 2011, police concluded that Shannan's death was not linked to the serial killer, something that is still strongly contended by her family.
This film tells the chilling story of five American girls who fell prey to a new, highly dangerous form of prostitution.
As the hunt for the killer continues, the police cannot rule out the possibility that he has claimed more lives, or that he will kill again. Meanwhile, more women are taken in by the lure of the online sex trade, running the risk of becoming someone's next victim.
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Sunday 28th October
Documentaries
The American Road Trip Obama's Story
Channel 4, 7:00-8:00pm
After nearly four years in power what do ordinary Americans think of the man many of his supporters once called 'Black Jesus'? Ahead of the 2012 US election, Channel 4's Washington Correspondent, Matt Frei, takes a road trip through the heart of the Midwest. Traveling through some of the swing states that will decide President Barack Obama's fate, Matt discovers what is really at stake in this election; in particular the fate of the increasingly endangered American middle class.
Obama entered the White House adored by millions, but has since faced an uphill struggle, wrestling with the worst recession for 60 years and Republican opponents who are determined to thwart the President at every turn. Obama has been criticised for political naivety, for failing to create a clear narrative to explain his policy decisions, and for tactical blunders that have damaged his presidency.
Many Americans feel that this is a historic election: the last chance to turn around a country that many fear is in decline. With the Republican candidate Mitt Romney breathing down his neck, Matt asks whether Obama - America's first black president - will also be a one-term president.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Michael Wood: The Story of India
BBC4, 8:00-9:00, 2/6
Michael Wood's epic series moves on to the revolutionary years after 500BC - the Age of the Buddha. Travelling by rail to the ancient cities of the Ganges plain, by army convoy through northern Iraq and on down the Khyber Pass, he shows how Alexander the Great's invasion of India inspired her first empire. Michael visits India's earliest capital, Patna, and using archaeology, legend and 'India's Rosetta stone', he shows how the ideas of the Buddha - 'India's first and greatest protester' - were turned into political reality by an Indian emperor who sowed the seeds of 'the most dangerous idea in history'.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Andrew Marr's History of the World
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 6/8 - Revolution
In the sixth episode of this landmark series charting the story of human civilisation, Andrew Marr explores the Age of Revolution.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, people across the world rose up in the name of freedom and equality against the power of the church and monarchy. In America, people fought a war to be free from British rule. In France, bloody revolution saw the king and aristocracy deposed. And in Haiti, the slaves revolted against their masters.
The world was also gripped by a scientific revolution, sweeping away old dogmas and superstition. Galileo revolutionized the way we saw humanity's place in the universe, while Edward Jenner used science to help save the lives of millions.
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Monday 29th October
Documentaries
Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life
More 4, 10:00-11:10pm, 3/3
Why does an atheist bother to get up in the morning?
That's the question Richard Dawkins seeks to answer as he continues his exploration of the big questions of life in a world shaking off religious faith.
In a journey that takes him from the casinos of Las Vegas to Buddhist monasteries in the foothills of the Himalayas, Richard Dawkins examines how both religious and non-religious people struggle to find meaning in their lives.
He looks at how our existence is ruled by chance, meeting people whose fate was to be born into extreme poverty in India's slums and the survivors of a natural disaster in Joplin, Missouri, a city ripped apart in 2011 by a tornado on a random course.
In the face of what appears to be a blindly indifferent universe, Dawkins argues that we each have to forge our own sense of meaning.
He meets the comedian Ricky Gervais, an atheist since the age of seven, for whom meaning comes through doing something creative.
For Dawkins, it is the awe and wonder in scientific enquiry - from the human genome to the quest for the Higgs Boson - that get him up in the morning.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media
How the Devil Got His Horns: A Diabolical Tale
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm
Art historian and critic Alastair Sooke reveals how the Devil's image was created by artists of the Middle Ages. He explores how, in the centuries between the birth of Christ and the Renaissance, visual interpretations of the Devil evolved, with the embodiment of evil appearing in different guises - tempter, tyrant, and rebellious angel. Alastair shows how artists used their imaginations to give form to Satan, whose description is absent from the Bible.
Exploring some of the most remarkable art in Europe, he tells the stories behind that art and examines the religious texts and thinking which inspired and influenced the artists. The result is a rich and unique picture of how art and religion have combined to define images of good and evil
Documentaries
Dispatches: Getting Rich on the NHS
Channel 4, 8:00-8:30pm
Under the new health reforms, private firms are being awarded millions of pounds-worth of NHS contracts.
One of the major new players is Virgin Care, a global brand more readily associated with planes, trains and record stores. The company is already providing medical services and running entire medical centres and is developing links to GPs across England.
Health reforms were meant to improve choice and competition, and put GPs in the driving seat. Morland Sanders examines whether the rapid handover of services to private contractors is really good for the public purse, and good for patient care.
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Tuesday 30th October
Factual
Operation Iceberg
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/2 - Birth of a 'berg
In Part One the expedition will be setting up camp on the West coast of Greenland at the front of the colossal Store glacier. From here they’ll be trying to track the vast forces driving the creation of icebergs. Suspended from ropes above huge crevasses and sailing right up to the collapsing glacier-front, they hope to see how changes in the warm Arctic seas are weakening the front of the glacier.
Meanwhile, high on the Greenland ice sheet other members of the team will be diving underwater into the enigmatic blue lakes. They hope to capture on camera one of these Arctic oases draining into the glacier in a cataclysmic vortex. Then they’ll be climbing down into the glacier’s heart in an attempt to follow the water as it forces its way through hundreds of metres of solid ice and accelerates the glacier.
Above all, the team will be keeping the glacier front under surveillance by boat and helicopter. They’ll become ice chasers, trying to predict and film the very moment when a new mega-berg splits from the glacier front and collapses spectacularly into the ocean, creating a mini-tsunami.
factual; Life Stories; Documentaries
Britain's Hidden Hungry
BBC1, 10:35-11:30pm
Care-leaver Charlotte eats just one meal a day. It's all she can afford, so she starves herself till evening. Sandra, middle class mother of five, is embarrassed that all she can give her son for his school packed lunch is bread and butter. Middle manager Kelly, mother of two, hasn't eaten for two days. Meet Britain's hidden hungry - and they're not what you'd expect.
As of 2012, more than 170,000 people are believed to be dependent on a chain of 300 foodbanks run by a Christian charity, the Trussell Trust. Bafta award winning film-maker David Modell has spent six months at the Coventry foodbank following the stories of Charlotte, Sandra and Kelly to find out how, in 2012, so many Britons are suffering genuine and prolonged bouts of real hunger.
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Wednesday 31st October
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documenataries
The Culture Show
BBC2, 19:00-19:30pm
Andrew Graham-Dixon is at the National Gallery's first major exhibition of photography to explore the influence of painting and fine art traditions on the work of some our leading photographers. Investigative journalist John Sweeney has made two acclaimed documentaries about The Church of Scientology. So, we asked him to join Mark Kermode to review The Master, the latest movie by Paul Thomas Anderson, which chronicles the life of the charismatic leader of a religious cult.
In the first of two reports about this year's shortlist for The Samuel Johnson Prize, Miranda Sawyer reviews three of the books in the running for the UK's leading prize for non-fiction. To celebrate Halloween, we mark the 400th anniversary of the trial and execution of twelve women accused of witchcraft with actress Maxine Peake and her band Eccentronic Research Council, who take their inspiration from the Pendle Witch Trials.
Arts, Culture and the Media
Frankenstein: A Modern Myth
Channel 4, 11:10pm-12:10am
From Boris Karloff to Mel Brooks, Frankenstein has fired the imagination of generations of artists who have created their own interpretation of this Gothic masterpiece.
Written by a 19-year-old girl nearly 200 years ago, this was the first and greatest myth of the modern scientific age.
Mary Shelley began writing her novel in Geneva, where she went to escape the judgmental gaze of British society with her lover Percy Shelley (a married man), her half-sister Clare and Clare's lover, the notorious poet Lord Byron.
Living a life of subversive glamour, they were the rock stars of the 1800s.
Shut up indoors during the wettest summer on record, Lord Byron suggested they each try to write a ghost story. Unable to begin, Mary panicked at first, but then in a waking dream she had the vision for her novel.
Frankenstein - published anonymously in 1818 when she was just 21 - has gone on to inspire its own popular genre of horror movies, punk rock and theatre productions.
Frankenstein: A Modern Myth looks at some of these depictions, including Danny Boyle's sell-out hit at the National Theatre.
The film has exclusive access to rehearsals and interviews with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller - who alternate the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature - and with Danny Boyle.
In a world preoccupied with debates about man overreaching himself, the perils of 'playing God' that animate Shelley's shocking ethical parable continue to keep the myth of Frankenstein alive today.
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Thursday 1st November
Factual
Operation Iceberg
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/2 - Life and Death of a 'berg
In the second part of this Arctic adventure series, Chris Packham and Helen Czerski and a team of explorers and scientists investigate an iceberg floating out at sea. Their aim is to discover the forces that gradually destroy an iceberg by looking at a massive tabular 'berg 50 kilometres from the Canadian coast.
During the expedition the team confronts a large number of polar bears - the largest land predator on Earth. And while working on the iceberg a large chunk of it actually breaks off beneath their feet. Despite these dangers, the team succeeds in revealing the mysteries of these stunning natural phenomena
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Friday 2nd November
News
Panorama: The Hospital that Stopped Caring
BBC1, 12:25-12:55am (signed version)
Last year BBC Panorama exposed the violent abuse of people with learning disabilities at Winterbourne View hospital outside Bristol. Now, using undercover footage never seen before, the programme reveals new evidence of poor training and false record-keeping. A number of former patients have faced further assaults or unnecessary restraints in other care establishments. Following the closure of Winterbourne View, and as 11 of its former staff are sentenced in court, Panorama asks: are the most vulnerable people in society any better protected?
Documentaries
The Year the Town Hall Shrank
BBC4, 2:35-3:35am, 1/3 - Winners and Losers
Documentary following the effects of the austerity-driven budget cuts on Stoke-on-Trent and the wider repercussions for the city's residents. In the first episode shot during December 2010, a £36million shortfall to the local authority's finances is discovered, and council leader Mohammed Pervez is left with the unpalatable task of deciding what services are to be scrapped.
News; Current Affairs
Unreported World
Channel 4, 7:30-8:00pm, 1/8 - USA: A Talk Radio Nation
In the run-up to the 2012 US election, Krishnan Guru-Murthy meets the talk-radio hosts broadcasting to a country more polarised than ever before. A news anchor steeped in the ethics of impartial reporting, and a former talk-radio show host himself, Krishnan finds his own values openly challenged and dismissed by these radio hosts, who say his neutrality is a form of bias and censorship. It's a world where - almost - anything goes; broadcasters are free to say 'all Muslims should be bombed' on the air, though swearing isn't allowed.
Radio hosts don't care who they offend, and they cheerfully admit to political bias: they see it as their job to get Obama voted out. The team meets Joyce Kaufman, the revolver-carrying Florida radio host fighting to get the core Republican vote out in this swing state. She was at the Mitt Romney fundraiser where he accused 47 per cent of US adults of not paying federal tax, and she thinks people should be ashamed to live on welfare. Part Puerto Rican, part Jewish, she describes herself as single to appeal to her listeners. 'The men think I'm available, and the women think I'm independent,' she tells Krishnan. But when the team visits her home, they learn she's been in a happy relationship for years, and she says a lot of her anger on air is part of her performance. Is she guilty of misleading her listeners during her shows by cherry-picking her facts? She says it's staying 'neutral' about issues like welfare dependency that's wrong.
In Mississippi, the team meets nationally-syndicated radio host Bryan Fischer, who believes Islam is a religion of hate and Muslims should convert to Christianity. Krishnan meets him again in Washington, just one of a number of prominent right-wing radio hosts topping the bill at a huge 'values voters' summit along with Paul Ryan, and wielding huge influence within the Republican Party. Talk-radio may be preaching to the converted, but in re-affirming the listeners' prejudices, Krishnan finds only highly partisan versions of the 'truth' survive.
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Thursday 18 October 2012
Off-air recordings for week 20-26 October 2012
Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
*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 20th October
Art and Literature; Fiction
The Gothic Imagination: Bloody Poetry
BBC Radio 4, 2:30-4:00pm
In Switzerland in 1816, the myth of Frankenstein was created by Mary Shelley. Howard Brenton's 1984 play imagines the lives of those present, among them the poets Byron and Shelley.
By the shore of Lake Geneva, the poet Shelley and his future wife Mary, together with her step-sister Claire, meet the infamous Lord Byron. All are in exile, self-imposed on Shelley's part, more serious for Byron, and find they are natural allies in a world which is threatened by their radical politics and unconventional attitudes to sexual freedom. Brenton's play celebrates the artistic radicalism and the fiery, intellectual anger of these young people, whose ideas threatened to kick over the traces of the society from which they were escaping. But their dreams of a utopian future were to be swallowed up in lives of excess, illness and tragic accidents.
With Oliver Ryan as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Clare Corbett as Mary Shelley, Patrick Kennedy as George, the Lord Byron, Sarah Ovens as Claire Clairmont, and Gareth Pierce as Dr William Polidori.
By coincidence, the play was recorded in the same week that a London auctioneer put on view the copy of Frankenstein that Mary Shelley inscribed for Byron ('To Lord Byron from the author'). The book was recently rediscovered in a private library and is expected to fetch something in the region of £400,000.
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Sunday 21st October
Drama; Classic and Period; Horro and Supernatural
Classic Serial: The Gothic Imagination - Dracula
BBC Radio 4, 3:00-4:00pm, 2/2
Bram Stoker's disturbing vampire tale of horror, in a new version by Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Lucy Westenra is dead, but Professor Van Helsing is determined to find out the true cause of her death, track it down, fight it and defeat it forever.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Andrew Marr's History of the World
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 5/8 - Age of Plunder
In the fifth episode of this landmark series charting the story of human civilisation, Andrew Marr tells the story of Europe's rise from piracy to private enterprise.
The explosion of global capitalism began with Christopher Columbus stumbling across America while searching for China. While Europe tore itself apart in religious wars after the Reformation, the Spanish colonised the New World and brought back 10 trillion dollars' worth of gold and silver.
But it was Dutch and English buccaneer businessmen who invented the real money-maker: limited companies and the stock exchange. They battled hand-to-hand to control the world's sea trade in spices, furs and luxuries like tulips. In the 145 years from 1492 to 1637, European capitalism was born and spread across the globe.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Michael Wood: The Story of India
BBC4, 11:40pm-12:40pm, 1/6
Michael Wood's journey through the history of the subcontinent chronicles the incredible richness and diversity of its peoples, cultures and landscapes, the originality and continuing relevance of its ideas and some of the most momentous and moving events in world history.
Beginning with the first human migrations out of Africa, using DNA and climate science, ancient manuscripts and oral tales, Michael takes us from the tropical backwaters of south India to lost ancient cities in Pakistan and the vibrant landscapes of the Ganges plain. Finally, to Turkmenistan where dramatic archaeological discoveries are casting new light on India's deep past.
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Monday 22nd October
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
The Digital Human
BBC Radio 4, 4:30-5:00pm, 4/7
Aleks Krotoski looks at whether we've all become techno-fundamentalists. Do we know what all our technology is for or more intriguingly what it wants?
Aleks hears from Douglas Rushkoff about how the whole of the world around us has always been programmed by architects, religion, and politics. But it's something we seem to have forgotten about technology itself.
Tom Chatfield discusses how the biases of technology (the things it naturally tends towards or is best at) interplay with human nature to turn much of our interaction with technology into some sort of perverse game.
But some of these biases like the end use of technology only emerge once people start to use it. Kevin Kelly is one of the world's most respected commentators on technology he believes that the biases of all our technology put together start to combine so that it behave very much like an organism. His provocative theories are detailed in his book What does Technology want?
We explore these theories by discussing our biggest technologies; the city and whether the latest innovations aiming to make our city's smarter and more sustainable hint at a better future relationship with the world of technology
Documentaries
Dispatches: Do You Know Your Partner's Past?
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm
Earlier this year Tina Nash's boyfriend was jailed for life after gouging her eyes out.
In this film, with exclusive access to the police, Tina investigates 'Clare's Law', a new controversial pilot scheme in which men and women are warned by the authorities about their partners' history of violence. Tina wants to know if it will make a difference for other victims of domestic abuse. She meets supporters and opponents to find out whether it is an effective way of pre-empting domestic violence or simply an invasion of privacy.
News
Panorama: Gambling Nation
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm
Even in recession-hit Britain, the gambling industry is still making a profit - £5.6 billion last year. With casino-style gambling now available day or night at the touch of a button in our homes and on our phones, Panorama explores its popularity... and reveals a darker side.
Reporter Sophie Raworth hears from those who have found their lives spiralling out of control, and from industry insiders who say that violence and frustration, linked to fast-paced high-stake gambling machines, are increasing in our high street betting shops. Panorama goes undercover in some of Britain's bookies to test those claims
Factual; Documentaries
The Real Rachman - Lord of the Slums
BBC Radio 4, 8:00-9:00pm
History tells us that Peter Rachman was a slum landlord; the evil head of an empire based on vice, violence and extortion. His festering heartland was Notting Hill - long before the rich and famous made it their home.
But can we really trust history?
On the fiftieth anniversary of Rachman's death, Joshua Levine goes in search of the man behind the legend. Looking beyond the tabloid headlines and the scandal of the Profumo affair, he asks whether Rachman deserves such a sordid reputation?
With no films or tapes, and only three photographs of the notorious 50s landlord, rumour and hearsay is all that remains. In an attempt to find the truth, Levine tracks down the key players who can shed light on Rachman's past. Mandy Rice Davis, famous for her role in the Profumo scandal, tells Josh about the generous, intelligent and vulnerable man she fell in love with as a 16 year old fresh to London; controversial modern landlord Nicholas van Hoogstraten shares how landlords like he and Rachman made money out of the slums; and noted psychologist James Thompson analyses the behaviour of Rachman in light of his experiences as a Holocaust survivor.
With access to newly released Home Office documents and old Rachman tenants, Joshua Levine pieces together the puzzle to ask who is the real Peter Rachman?
Factual; Politics; Education
Analysis: School of Hard Facts
BBC Radio 4, 8:30-9:00pm
E.D. Hirsch is a little-known American professor whose radical ideas about what should be taught in schools are set to have a profound effect on English schools. A favoured intellectual of the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, Hirsch advocates a curriculum strongly grounded in facts and knowledge. He also believes that there are certain specific ideas, works of literature and scientific concepts which everyone should know so that they can be active participants in society.
Presenter Fran Abrams interviews Hirsch about his ideas. She considers their likely impact on English schools and speaks to the former English schools minister, Nick Gibb MP, who championed Hirsch's ideas when he was in government. He explains the reasons for bringing Hirsch's ideas across the Atlantic and how they could counteract what he describes as a prevailing left-wing ideology among teachers.
Fran also visits London's Pimlico Academy which is pioneering a "Hirsch-style" curriculum in its new primary school. She talks to the young women leading this experiment: Anneliese Briggs and Daisy Christodoulou.
Daisy was once dubbed "Britain's brightest student" after captaining the successful Warwick University team on "University Challenge". She discusses why she finds Hirsch's ideas so compelling. She also explains why, in her view, he stands in a proud left-wing tradition that champions knowledge as power, a view that contrasts with Nick Gibb's more right-of-centre take on Hirsch's ideas.
Fran also talks to Professor Sir Michael Barber, chief education adviser to Pearson and former policy implementation director to Tony Blair in Downing Street, and to a former leading member of the Government's expert panel on the curriculum, Professor Andrew Pollard.
_______________________________
Tuesday 23rd October
Factual; Documentaries
Girls Behind Bars: Stacey Dooley in the USA
BBC3, 8:00-9:00pm
Shaved heads, three-minute showers and press-ups at 5.30am. This is what is facing girls entering 'Shock' - the only US prison boot camp for women. Stacey Dooley meets the girls doing 'Shock' and also spends time in a medium-security prison to see what they will be facing if they fail.
Factual; Health and Wellbeing; Life Stories; Documentaries
Golden Oldies
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm
This affectionate insight into being old today sees three Golden Oldies pass on their astute and humorous insights on becoming old and poor, and the stark choices they now face in their twilight years. Full of wisdom, independent spirit and hard-earned perspective, their stories make you ask, 'Could this happen to me?'
Doris is 84, and won't let a living soul (including the film-maker) inside her chaotic Clacton home - for fear that social services will take it away from her.
Feisty Kitty in Exeter is also 84. She shows us her Kate Moss-inspired knicker and bra collection, and dreams of a miracle cure to an illness like most dream of winning the lottery.
And then there's relatively youthful and charismatic Frank from Liverpool, who at 72 has lost his family to emigration. With no-one left, he has lost the will to carry on - but not his intelligence or tragic humour. Self-imprisoned in his own home like a character from a Samuel Beckett play, his neighbours rarely see him. He hasn't had a bath in years - mainly because he doesn't have one. He's reminiscent of an older, helpless Boo Radley from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.
_______________________________
Wednesday 24th October
Factual; Documentaries
Brazil with Michael Palin
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/4
Michael Palin has travelled the world for the past 25 years, earning him a reputation as the man who's been everywhere. But there’s one big gap in his passport: Brazil. The fifth-largest country on earth with an abundance of resources and a melting pot of peoples, it’s a nation that's risen almost out of nowhere to become a 21st-century superpower, and is next in line to host both the World Cup and Olympic Games. In this four-part series, Palin sets off to discover a country whose time has come.
Michael begins in the north east – where Europeans first settled and grew rich on slave labour. Here, the mix of indigenous people, African slaves, and relatively few Europeans created many of the characteristic elements of Brazilian life: food, dance, music and a multiplicity of religions.
In Sao Luis, European and African religious rituals come together in typically Brazilian celebrations, and Michael heads to the city’s backstreets to find out about a ceremony based on a 200-year-old slave tale.
He visits one of the region's massive beaches – the country’s great public playgrounds – before heading to the monster sand-dunes of the Lencois Maranhenses National Park. In Recife, Michael tours the city’s striking street art and sculptures, and in Olinda, he gets roped onto the dance floor in a country where everybody dances. Journeying inland, he gets a glimpse of the fast-disappearing world of old-style ‘vaqueiro’ cowboys.
In Salvador, Michael has his fortune read by a priest who practises the local religion of Candomble. He tries his hand at African drumming, samples the Bahian cuisine of a legendary local chef, and is introduced to capoeira in one of the city’s shanty towns.
Leaving Salvador, Michael passes sugar-cane plantations on route to a cigar factory, before finishing the first leg of his journey off the coast on a traditional saveiro boat.
_______________________________
Thursday 25th October
The Town That Caught Tourettes
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm
In October 2011 in the tiny town of Le Roy, New York, a handful of teenage girls from the same high school suddenly developed symptoms that looked like Tourette's syndrome: facial twitching, violent limb gestures and uncontrollable verbal outbursts.
Some doctors believed they were victims of conversion disorder, where real physical symptoms - in this case tics - are triggered not by a physical cause, but by psychological trauma. But within a few months 18 students were sick and the diagnosis became 'mass hysteria'.
As a cry for help, the girls went on national TV and their story caused a global media frenzy.
This remarkable documentary meets the people at the heart of this outbreak, including the girls who have recovered, as well as those who are still suffering.
Factual; Life Stories; Politics; Documentaries
Storyville - American Idol: Reagan
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:50am
Documentary which examines the enigmatic career of screen star and two-term US president Ronald Reagan.
He has been heralded as one of the architects of the modern world and since his death many Americans have been working to cement his legacy. To some he has come to define contemporary conservatism and has increasingly become a standard-bearer for American statecraft. So phenomenal has his legacy become that both Republican and Democratic politicians today continue to invoke his name to win votes.
But some critics argue that the aftershocks of Reaganomics continue to crumble economies the world over and that the hubris of Reagan's foreign policy continues to propel America into a cycle of overseas ventures. To such critics Reagan is an ominous figure who did more harm than good.
But who was Ronald Reagan, and how did he come to shape world politics in the way he did? Featuring in-depth interviews with those who worked with him and knew him best, this film provides a definitive and penetrating look at Reaganism.
_______________________________
Friday 26th October
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
A Wolf Called Storm: A Natural World Special
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries
Foreign Bodies: A History Of Modern Europe Through Literary Detectives
BBC Radio 4, 1:45-2:00pm, parts 1-5/15 - Omnibus Edition 1/3 - Poirot, Maigret, Martin Beck, Van Der Valk, Boruvka and Barlach
Crime fiction reflects society's tensions. Helped by famous literary detectives including Maigret, Montalbano, Dalgliesh and Wallander, Mark Lawson shows how crimes reflect Europe's times from the world wars of the 20th century to the Eurozone crisis and nationalist tensions of the 21st.
Beginning with the template set by Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Georges Simenon's Jules Maigret. Mark Lawson hears from Val McDermid, Lord Grey Gowrie, Andrea Camilleri, PD James and David Suchet.
We move to a Swiss view of Germany in the novels of Friedrich Dürrenmatt which explore guilt, responsibility and justice after World War II. Contributions come from Ferdinand von Schirach, Simon McBurney, Josie Rourke, Hollywood scriptwriters Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski; and Professor Katharina Hall (aka Mrs Peabody Investigates)
Josef Skvorecký's depiction of Czech history is discussed by translator (and former member of the Plastic People of the Universe) Paul Wilson. After his novel The Cowards was banned by the Communist authorities, Skvorecký began the Lieutenant Boruvka series.
Inspector Van Der Valk brought an image of Holland to '70s viewers of the TV dramatisations starring Barry Foster. Mark Lawson finds out the Dutch view of Nicholas Freeling's cop from best seller Saskia Voort
The Martin Beck crime novels written by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö deliberately traced changes in Swedish society between 1965 and 1975. Their influence is discussed by Jo Nesbø, Henning Mankell, Åsa Larsson, Camilla Lackberg, Jens Lapidus and Gunnar Staalesen.
_______________________________
*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 20th October
Art and Literature; Fiction
The Gothic Imagination: Bloody Poetry
BBC Radio 4, 2:30-4:00pm
In Switzerland in 1816, the myth of Frankenstein was created by Mary Shelley. Howard Brenton's 1984 play imagines the lives of those present, among them the poets Byron and Shelley.
By the shore of Lake Geneva, the poet Shelley and his future wife Mary, together with her step-sister Claire, meet the infamous Lord Byron. All are in exile, self-imposed on Shelley's part, more serious for Byron, and find they are natural allies in a world which is threatened by their radical politics and unconventional attitudes to sexual freedom. Brenton's play celebrates the artistic radicalism and the fiery, intellectual anger of these young people, whose ideas threatened to kick over the traces of the society from which they were escaping. But their dreams of a utopian future were to be swallowed up in lives of excess, illness and tragic accidents.
With Oliver Ryan as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Clare Corbett as Mary Shelley, Patrick Kennedy as George, the Lord Byron, Sarah Ovens as Claire Clairmont, and Gareth Pierce as Dr William Polidori.
By coincidence, the play was recorded in the same week that a London auctioneer put on view the copy of Frankenstein that Mary Shelley inscribed for Byron ('To Lord Byron from the author'). The book was recently rediscovered in a private library and is expected to fetch something in the region of £400,000.
______________________________
Sunday 21st October
Drama; Classic and Period; Horro and Supernatural
Classic Serial: The Gothic Imagination - Dracula
BBC Radio 4, 3:00-4:00pm, 2/2
Bram Stoker's disturbing vampire tale of horror, in a new version by Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Lucy Westenra is dead, but Professor Van Helsing is determined to find out the true cause of her death, track it down, fight it and defeat it forever.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Andrew Marr's History of the World
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 5/8 - Age of Plunder
In the fifth episode of this landmark series charting the story of human civilisation, Andrew Marr tells the story of Europe's rise from piracy to private enterprise.
The explosion of global capitalism began with Christopher Columbus stumbling across America while searching for China. While Europe tore itself apart in religious wars after the Reformation, the Spanish colonised the New World and brought back 10 trillion dollars' worth of gold and silver.
But it was Dutch and English buccaneer businessmen who invented the real money-maker: limited companies and the stock exchange. They battled hand-to-hand to control the world's sea trade in spices, furs and luxuries like tulips. In the 145 years from 1492 to 1637, European capitalism was born and spread across the globe.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Michael Wood: The Story of India
BBC4, 11:40pm-12:40pm, 1/6
Michael Wood's journey through the history of the subcontinent chronicles the incredible richness and diversity of its peoples, cultures and landscapes, the originality and continuing relevance of its ideas and some of the most momentous and moving events in world history.
Beginning with the first human migrations out of Africa, using DNA and climate science, ancient manuscripts and oral tales, Michael takes us from the tropical backwaters of south India to lost ancient cities in Pakistan and the vibrant landscapes of the Ganges plain. Finally, to Turkmenistan where dramatic archaeological discoveries are casting new light on India's deep past.
_______________________________
Monday 22nd October
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
The Digital Human
BBC Radio 4, 4:30-5:00pm, 4/7
Aleks Krotoski looks at whether we've all become techno-fundamentalists. Do we know what all our technology is for or more intriguingly what it wants?
Aleks hears from Douglas Rushkoff about how the whole of the world around us has always been programmed by architects, religion, and politics. But it's something we seem to have forgotten about technology itself.
Tom Chatfield discusses how the biases of technology (the things it naturally tends towards or is best at) interplay with human nature to turn much of our interaction with technology into some sort of perverse game.
But some of these biases like the end use of technology only emerge once people start to use it. Kevin Kelly is one of the world's most respected commentators on technology he believes that the biases of all our technology put together start to combine so that it behave very much like an organism. His provocative theories are detailed in his book What does Technology want?
We explore these theories by discussing our biggest technologies; the city and whether the latest innovations aiming to make our city's smarter and more sustainable hint at a better future relationship with the world of technology
Documentaries
Dispatches: Do You Know Your Partner's Past?
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm
Earlier this year Tina Nash's boyfriend was jailed for life after gouging her eyes out.
In this film, with exclusive access to the police, Tina investigates 'Clare's Law', a new controversial pilot scheme in which men and women are warned by the authorities about their partners' history of violence. Tina wants to know if it will make a difference for other victims of domestic abuse. She meets supporters and opponents to find out whether it is an effective way of pre-empting domestic violence or simply an invasion of privacy.
News
Panorama: Gambling Nation
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm
Even in recession-hit Britain, the gambling industry is still making a profit - £5.6 billion last year. With casino-style gambling now available day or night at the touch of a button in our homes and on our phones, Panorama explores its popularity... and reveals a darker side.
Reporter Sophie Raworth hears from those who have found their lives spiralling out of control, and from industry insiders who say that violence and frustration, linked to fast-paced high-stake gambling machines, are increasing in our high street betting shops. Panorama goes undercover in some of Britain's bookies to test those claims
Factual; Documentaries
The Real Rachman - Lord of the Slums
BBC Radio 4, 8:00-9:00pm
History tells us that Peter Rachman was a slum landlord; the evil head of an empire based on vice, violence and extortion. His festering heartland was Notting Hill - long before the rich and famous made it their home.
But can we really trust history?
On the fiftieth anniversary of Rachman's death, Joshua Levine goes in search of the man behind the legend. Looking beyond the tabloid headlines and the scandal of the Profumo affair, he asks whether Rachman deserves such a sordid reputation?
With no films or tapes, and only three photographs of the notorious 50s landlord, rumour and hearsay is all that remains. In an attempt to find the truth, Levine tracks down the key players who can shed light on Rachman's past. Mandy Rice Davis, famous for her role in the Profumo scandal, tells Josh about the generous, intelligent and vulnerable man she fell in love with as a 16 year old fresh to London; controversial modern landlord Nicholas van Hoogstraten shares how landlords like he and Rachman made money out of the slums; and noted psychologist James Thompson analyses the behaviour of Rachman in light of his experiences as a Holocaust survivor.
With access to newly released Home Office documents and old Rachman tenants, Joshua Levine pieces together the puzzle to ask who is the real Peter Rachman?
Factual; Politics; Education
Analysis: School of Hard Facts
BBC Radio 4, 8:30-9:00pm
E.D. Hirsch is a little-known American professor whose radical ideas about what should be taught in schools are set to have a profound effect on English schools. A favoured intellectual of the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, Hirsch advocates a curriculum strongly grounded in facts and knowledge. He also believes that there are certain specific ideas, works of literature and scientific concepts which everyone should know so that they can be active participants in society.
Presenter Fran Abrams interviews Hirsch about his ideas. She considers their likely impact on English schools and speaks to the former English schools minister, Nick Gibb MP, who championed Hirsch's ideas when he was in government. He explains the reasons for bringing Hirsch's ideas across the Atlantic and how they could counteract what he describes as a prevailing left-wing ideology among teachers.
Fran also visits London's Pimlico Academy which is pioneering a "Hirsch-style" curriculum in its new primary school. She talks to the young women leading this experiment: Anneliese Briggs and Daisy Christodoulou.
Daisy was once dubbed "Britain's brightest student" after captaining the successful Warwick University team on "University Challenge". She discusses why she finds Hirsch's ideas so compelling. She also explains why, in her view, he stands in a proud left-wing tradition that champions knowledge as power, a view that contrasts with Nick Gibb's more right-of-centre take on Hirsch's ideas.
Fran also talks to Professor Sir Michael Barber, chief education adviser to Pearson and former policy implementation director to Tony Blair in Downing Street, and to a former leading member of the Government's expert panel on the curriculum, Professor Andrew Pollard.
_______________________________
Tuesday 23rd October
Factual; Documentaries
Girls Behind Bars: Stacey Dooley in the USA
BBC3, 8:00-9:00pm
Shaved heads, three-minute showers and press-ups at 5.30am. This is what is facing girls entering 'Shock' - the only US prison boot camp for women. Stacey Dooley meets the girls doing 'Shock' and also spends time in a medium-security prison to see what they will be facing if they fail.
Factual; Health and Wellbeing; Life Stories; Documentaries
Golden Oldies
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm
This affectionate insight into being old today sees three Golden Oldies pass on their astute and humorous insights on becoming old and poor, and the stark choices they now face in their twilight years. Full of wisdom, independent spirit and hard-earned perspective, their stories make you ask, 'Could this happen to me?'
Doris is 84, and won't let a living soul (including the film-maker) inside her chaotic Clacton home - for fear that social services will take it away from her.
Feisty Kitty in Exeter is also 84. She shows us her Kate Moss-inspired knicker and bra collection, and dreams of a miracle cure to an illness like most dream of winning the lottery.
And then there's relatively youthful and charismatic Frank from Liverpool, who at 72 has lost his family to emigration. With no-one left, he has lost the will to carry on - but not his intelligence or tragic humour. Self-imprisoned in his own home like a character from a Samuel Beckett play, his neighbours rarely see him. He hasn't had a bath in years - mainly because he doesn't have one. He's reminiscent of an older, helpless Boo Radley from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.
_______________________________
Wednesday 24th October
Factual; Documentaries
Brazil with Michael Palin
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/4
Michael Palin has travelled the world for the past 25 years, earning him a reputation as the man who's been everywhere. But there’s one big gap in his passport: Brazil. The fifth-largest country on earth with an abundance of resources and a melting pot of peoples, it’s a nation that's risen almost out of nowhere to become a 21st-century superpower, and is next in line to host both the World Cup and Olympic Games. In this four-part series, Palin sets off to discover a country whose time has come.
Michael begins in the north east – where Europeans first settled and grew rich on slave labour. Here, the mix of indigenous people, African slaves, and relatively few Europeans created many of the characteristic elements of Brazilian life: food, dance, music and a multiplicity of religions.
In Sao Luis, European and African religious rituals come together in typically Brazilian celebrations, and Michael heads to the city’s backstreets to find out about a ceremony based on a 200-year-old slave tale.
He visits one of the region's massive beaches – the country’s great public playgrounds – before heading to the monster sand-dunes of the Lencois Maranhenses National Park. In Recife, Michael tours the city’s striking street art and sculptures, and in Olinda, he gets roped onto the dance floor in a country where everybody dances. Journeying inland, he gets a glimpse of the fast-disappearing world of old-style ‘vaqueiro’ cowboys.
In Salvador, Michael has his fortune read by a priest who practises the local religion of Candomble. He tries his hand at African drumming, samples the Bahian cuisine of a legendary local chef, and is introduced to capoeira in one of the city’s shanty towns.
Leaving Salvador, Michael passes sugar-cane plantations on route to a cigar factory, before finishing the first leg of his journey off the coast on a traditional saveiro boat.
_______________________________
Thursday 25th October
The Town That Caught Tourettes
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm
In October 2011 in the tiny town of Le Roy, New York, a handful of teenage girls from the same high school suddenly developed symptoms that looked like Tourette's syndrome: facial twitching, violent limb gestures and uncontrollable verbal outbursts.
Some doctors believed they were victims of conversion disorder, where real physical symptoms - in this case tics - are triggered not by a physical cause, but by psychological trauma. But within a few months 18 students were sick and the diagnosis became 'mass hysteria'.
As a cry for help, the girls went on national TV and their story caused a global media frenzy.
This remarkable documentary meets the people at the heart of this outbreak, including the girls who have recovered, as well as those who are still suffering.
Factual; Life Stories; Politics; Documentaries
Storyville - American Idol: Reagan
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:50am
Documentary which examines the enigmatic career of screen star and two-term US president Ronald Reagan.
He has been heralded as one of the architects of the modern world and since his death many Americans have been working to cement his legacy. To some he has come to define contemporary conservatism and has increasingly become a standard-bearer for American statecraft. So phenomenal has his legacy become that both Republican and Democratic politicians today continue to invoke his name to win votes.
But some critics argue that the aftershocks of Reaganomics continue to crumble economies the world over and that the hubris of Reagan's foreign policy continues to propel America into a cycle of overseas ventures. To such critics Reagan is an ominous figure who did more harm than good.
But who was Ronald Reagan, and how did he come to shape world politics in the way he did? Featuring in-depth interviews with those who worked with him and knew him best, this film provides a definitive and penetrating look at Reaganism.
_______________________________
Friday 26th October
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
A Wolf Called Storm: A Natural World Special
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries
Foreign Bodies: A History Of Modern Europe Through Literary Detectives
BBC Radio 4, 1:45-2:00pm, parts 1-5/15 - Omnibus Edition 1/3 - Poirot, Maigret, Martin Beck, Van Der Valk, Boruvka and Barlach
Crime fiction reflects society's tensions. Helped by famous literary detectives including Maigret, Montalbano, Dalgliesh and Wallander, Mark Lawson shows how crimes reflect Europe's times from the world wars of the 20th century to the Eurozone crisis and nationalist tensions of the 21st.
Beginning with the template set by Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Georges Simenon's Jules Maigret. Mark Lawson hears from Val McDermid, Lord Grey Gowrie, Andrea Camilleri, PD James and David Suchet.
We move to a Swiss view of Germany in the novels of Friedrich Dürrenmatt which explore guilt, responsibility and justice after World War II. Contributions come from Ferdinand von Schirach, Simon McBurney, Josie Rourke, Hollywood scriptwriters Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski; and Professor Katharina Hall (aka Mrs Peabody Investigates)
Josef Skvorecký's depiction of Czech history is discussed by translator (and former member of the Plastic People of the Universe) Paul Wilson. After his novel The Cowards was banned by the Communist authorities, Skvorecký began the Lieutenant Boruvka series.
Inspector Van Der Valk brought an image of Holland to '70s viewers of the TV dramatisations starring Barry Foster. Mark Lawson finds out the Dutch view of Nicholas Freeling's cop from best seller Saskia Voort
The Martin Beck crime novels written by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö deliberately traced changes in Swedish society between 1965 and 1975. Their influence is discussed by Jo Nesbø, Henning Mankell, Åsa Larsson, Camilla Lackberg, Jens Lapidus and Gunnar Staalesen.
_______________________________
Wednesday 10 October 2012
Off-air recordings for week 13-19 October 2012
Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
*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.
_____________________________________________
Sunday 13th October
Arts, Culture and the Media; Children's Fiction; Films
The Golden Compass
Channel 4, 5:55-8:00pm
Young Lyra Belacqua is thrown into an adventure that takes her to the Arctic, and the company of witches and talking bears in this star-studded adaptation of the first of Philip Pullman's acclaimed trilogy
Factual; History; Documentaries
Andrew Marr's History of the World
BBC1, 9:30-10:30pm, 4/8 - Into the Light
The golden age of Islam and powerful new trading states helped to define the Middle Ages.
Drama; Biographical; Films
Howl
BBC2, 11:30pm-12:50am
Drama. When the beat poet Allen Ginsberg published his poem Howl in 1957 America, he was put on trial for obscenity. This tells his story and illustrates the poem in animation.
Drama; Classic and Period; Horror and Supernatural
Classic Serial: The Gothic Imagination: Dracula
BBC Radio 4, 3:00-4:00pm, 1/2
The original vampire horror story by Bram Stoker, in a new version by Rebecca Lenkiewicz.
_____________________________________________
Monday 14th October
Arts, Culture and the Media
Scream Queens
BBC Radio 4, 4:00-4:30pm
'It is women who love horror,' said the screen's first Dracula, Bela Lugosi. Since the horror genre began eighty years ago, the female role has changed; the passive victims of the classic monsters of the past have become resourceful heroines competing on equal terms with their male co-stars, both human and inhuman.
In this revealing documentary, part of BBC Radio 4's gothic season, Reece Shearsmith meets a coven of female horror stars and charts the development and changing roles in the genre; from the femmes fatales of Dracula's Daughter, through Hitchcock's leading ladies, to Hammer's lesbian vampires of the 1970s and the present-day action heroines such as Buffy the Vampire-Slayer.
Shearsmith reflects on the history and roles of women in horror films such as Psycho, The Innocents and Rosemary's Baby, with archive of Deborah Kerr, Ingrid Pitt and Barbara Steele.
Shearsmith believes that women are making a greater impact in the horror genre but is it still a man's world?
Contributors include screen legends Barbara Shelley and Madeline Smith, along with television's 'Woman in Black' Pauline Moran. Shearsmith also meets Linda Hayden who stars in one of his favourite horror films 'Blood on Satan's Claw'; and we also hear from Jane Merrow who went from appearing in horror movies to producing them.
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
The Digital Human
BBC Radio 4, 4:30-5:00pm, 3/7
Aleks speaks to Grandmaster of memory, Ed Cooke who thinks memory is going out of fashion because of our reliance on digital devices.
Mastermind champion and London cabbie Fred Housego explains how he relies on 'The Knowledge' to navigate London but relies on his wife's short term memory to remember dates for engagements, shopping lists, phone numbers. Psychologist Betsy Sparrow explains that this is known as transactive memory and it's exactly what we are doing with our digital devices. Cyborg Anthropologist, Amber Chase explains that in the past we had physical extensions of ourselves, for example with tools, but we now have mental extensions of ourselves, with our digital devices acting as externalised brains, changing our sense of self.
Aleks discovers that the way we remember is not only changing our perceptions of self but challenging the very concept of intelligence. Aleks hears that the smart kid of the past memorized lots of data but the smart kid of the future will know how to navigate the system and how to understand concepts. This is exactly what 15 year old US high school pupil, Jack Andraka did when he discovered a new test for pancreatic cancer using the internet. With little background knowledge and armed only with what he knew from biology classes he scoured the web for papers that helped him make connections that will potentially save thousands of lives.
The way we use our memory is changing but as Psychologist Betsy Sparrow explains we are only responding to our surroundings and evolving as we always have.
News
Panorama: Kill at Will? America On Trial
BBC1, 8|:30-9:00pm
Ahead of America's costliest-ever elections, Raphael Rowe investigates how powerful lobby groups helped create laws blamed for one of the most controversial killings in recent US history. The shooting dead of a 17-year-old teenager by a neighbourhood watchman polarised America, provoked presidential intervention and shone a light on an extreme American law, called 'Stand Your Ground'. It provides immunity from prosecution or, as some say, a 'License to Kill'. But does gun politics also show how America really works? Panorama asks: is American democracy for sale?
Documentaries
Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life
More4, 10:00-11:10pm
Ideas about the soul and the afterlife, of sin and God's purpose have shaped human thinking for thousands of years. Religious rituals remain embedded in the major events of our lives.
In this thought-provoking series, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins asks what happens if we leave religion behind. He explores what reason and science might offer to inspire and guide our lives in religion's place.
Can science bring understanding in the face of death, help us tell right from wrong, or reveal the point of life in the first place?
In a journey that takes him through visually stunning locations across the world, Richard Dawkins builds a powerful argument for facing up to the scientific truth about life and death - however hard that might be.
If there is no God watching us, why be good? Richard Dawkins is taking on the big questions of life and, in this opening programme, he examines sin.
He asks whether the old religious rules about what is right and wrong are helpful and explores what reason science can tell us about how to be good.
Dawkins journeys from riot-torn inner city London to America's Bible Belt, building a powerful argument that religion's absolutist moral codes fuel lies and guilt.
He finds the most extreme example in a Paris plastic surgery clinic which specialises in making Muslim brides appear to be virgins once again.
But what can science and reason tell us about morality? Through encounters with lemurs, tango dancers, the gay rights campaigner Matthew Parris and the scientist Steven Pinker, Dawkins investigates the deeper roots of moral behaviour in our evolutionary past.
He explores the rituals that surround mating and the science of disgust and taboo. Drawing on crime data and insights from neuroscience, he argues that our evolved senses of reason and empathy appear to be making us more and more moral, even as religious observance declines.
_____________________________________________
Tuesday 15th October
Crime; Documentaries
Born to Kill? Serial Killing Saviour
Channel 5, 8:00-9:00pm
At school, Herbert William Mullin's classmates voted him 'most likely to succeed'. By the time he was 25, he had taken the lives of 13 men, women and children and spread panic throughout the coastal community of Santa Cruz. Mullin would claim to be on an extraordinary mission to save lives through murder. Was this heinous serial killer driven by nature or nurture? We follow in the footsteps of the investigators and experts that had to unravel the mystery and ask them – and, in a unique interview, the murderer himself – was Herbert William Mullin born to kill?
Science and Nature; Documentaries
Order and Disorder with Jim Al-Khalili
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/2 - Energy
What is energy? The excellent Jim Al-Khalili tackles one of those questions – children tend to hit upon them – that sound banal on the surface but actually took us a few centuries to answer. Scientists the layman may not have heard of, namely Leibniz, Carnot, Clausius and Boltzmann, are celebrated as we learn how they collectively gave us the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
Prof Al-Khalili’s clear explanations and juicy biographical details are bolstered by winning contributors and some nice visual touches — stark white backdrops cleansing the palate before each new segment, for instance. An entertaining hour later, you’ll finally know what entropy is…
The theoretical physicist tells the story of how the rules of the universe were discovered. In the first programme he explores energy, assessing its importance to daily existence, how it links everything together, and how it helps people make sense of the world.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
The Goddess of Art: Marina Abramovic
BBC4, 10:45-11:45pm
During her 40-year career the grandmother of performance art has, among other things, stabbed her hand with knives and sliced her skin with razorblades. This meditative film pays homage to an artist as controversial as she is celebrated while charting the months leading up to a 2010 exhibition in New York. It was her most physically and psychologically challenging performance to date: Abramovic sat absolutely still for seven and a half hours a day, six days a week for three months.
An insight into the work of the artist as she prepares for a major new retrospective of her work, taking place at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. For nearly 40 years she has endeavoured to create innovative and challenging pieces, sometimes putting her life in danger, but now hopes the upcoming show will encourage a more open-minded approach to art.
Factual; Documentaries
Time Shift: Klezmer
BBC4, 11:45pm-12:45am
Michael Grade narrates the story of klezmer, the 'original party music'. From its origins in Jewish folk music performed at weddings and Bar Mitzvahs, klezmer has now gone global, played from Amsterdam to Australia to audiences who find its spirit and energy hard to resist. Timeshift explores the sounds, influences and shifting fortunes of this infectious music and shows that beneath its joyful strains lies an emotional appeal that you don't need to be Jewish to respond to.
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Wednesday 16th October
Factual; Documentaries
Welcome to India
BBC2, 3/3
With India destined to become the most populous nation on earth by 2026, you've got to be highly tactical in your search for a better life. It's not just about you and your dreams today - it's about the family over generations to come.
Prakash and Mangesh are brothers in their early twenties from an illegal settlement surrounded by the buzz of downtown Mumbai. Prakash is deckhand on a yacht while striving to realise his dream and launch a Bollywood career. But his family are playing the long game, and make it clear his sole purpose is to earn enough to fund in their joint future: his brother Mangesh's course in software engineering. Apparently doomed to be the underdog, an audition does finally come Prakash's way.
Swapan, a merchant in a hectic fish market, works so hard for his family's future that his wife knows he is ruining his health. When preparations for the huge Durga Puja festival - celebrating the cycle of life - adds yet more stress, it is clear that he is simply fulfilling his role in this cycle.
Sujit, who crafts disposable clay tea cups for slim margins in Kolkata, hardly dares dream of seeing his family and newly born daughter hundreds of miles away in his home village. But not prepared to give up, he conjures a business idea that allows them to come to the city - proving that with enough ingenuity, thinking long term can make dreams come true.
Factual; Documentaries
Hallucination: Through the Doors of Perception
BBC Radio 4, 9:00-10:00pm
Hallucinations aren't what they used to be. Time was when reporting a divine vision would bring fame or fortune, and have a queue of people wanting to touch your robe, receive a blessing, or recommend you for sainthood.
The Enlightenment changed all that and nowadays you'd be more at risk of being handed a prescription for a major tranquilliser or even sectioned under the Mental Health Act for reporting what you saw or heard. Hallucinating, in essence, the experience of seeing or hearing (and sometimes smelling or touching) something that by any objective measure, isn't there, has been linked to a wide variety of causes. From the use of mind-altering substances such as LSD, to the complex collection of often distressing symptoms labelled schizophrenia. Neurological damage, dementia, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, stress, narcolepsy - all these and more have been linked to hallucination. But there are also examples of otherwise 'healthy' individuals who have experienced vivid and sometimes distressing hallucinations which for most of the last century, science has largely overlooked. But with the advent of fMRI scanning, where researchers can observe the hallucinating brain in action, it is these "healthy" individuals who are beginning to open the doors of perception and which may provide new insights and treatments for psychosis and schizophrenia.
In this programme, Geoff Watts meets researchers attempting to unlock the mysteries of hallucination as well as some of those who experience the phenomenon. Geoff visits Dr Dominic Ffytche of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, and undergoes a stroboscopic experiment designed to induce hallucinations in subjects whilst their brains are being scanned. We hear some of the vivid accounts from hallucinators, including Doris, who has macular degeneration. Over the last year, her failing eyesight has resulted in an array of objects and images appearing before her with startling clarity, from relatively benign baskets of flowers to the rather more distressing sight of dark, haunting figures sitting by her bed. Her condition is known as Charles Bonnet Syndrome and Dr Ffytche estimates that over 2 million people suffer from this in the UK alone, mostly in silence, due to the fear of being labelled as 'mad'. Geoff also visits Kelly Diederen's lab at Oxford University, which is investigating the origin of auditory hallucinations - hearing voices. Common in people with schizophrenia, Dr Diederen is instead, scanning the brains of so-called "healthy hallucinators", individuals who otherwise lead perfectly functional lives save for the fact that they hear voices on a daily basis. Could they hold the key to understanding and treating a key symptom of psychosis? And Geoff talks to internationally renowned neurologist and author, Dr Oliver Sacks, about his own experience of hallucination as well as his new book on the subject.
Factual
Exposure: Driven from Home
ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm
The information contained herein is strictly embargoed from all press use, non-commercial publication, or syndication until Tuesday October 9, 2012.
This new documentary in the Exposure strand explores life on a housing estate, documenting the story of those who feel driven out by anti-social behaviour.
The programme goes undercover in the Nunsthorpe Estate in Grimsby to reveal the extent of crime and drug dealing, and exposes how a culture of fear governs some streets.
Money is tight, jobs are in short supply, crime and disorder are genuine concerns for residents. This programme shows how some are too frightened to call the police so they pack their bags, while others are determined to stay and improve life for all - including a reformed armed robber who is determined to turn his estate around.
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Thursday 17th October
Science and Technology; Documentaries
Tonight: Is Technology Taking Over Our Lives?
ITV1, 7:30-8:00pm
Forty per cent of adults in the UK now own a smartphone, and the average household has three internet-enabled devices. Such gadgets may have made many activities easier, but some argue that too much dependence on them can be harmful. Jonathan Maitland asks whether technology is changing people's lives for better or worse.
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
Tails You Win: The Science of Chance
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm
Smart and witty, jam-packed with augmented-reality graphics and fascinating history, this film, presented by Professor David Spiegelhalter, tries to pin down what chance is and how it works in the real world. For once this really is 'risky' television.
The film follows in the footsteps of The Joy of Stats, which won the prestigious Grierson Award for Best Science/Natural History programme of 2011. Now the same blend of wit and wisdom, animation, graphics and gleeful nerdery is applied to the joys of chance and the mysteries of probability, the vital branch of mathematics that gives us a handle on what might happen in the future. Professor Spiegelhalter is ideally suited to that task, being Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University, as well as being a recent Winter Wipeout contestant on BBC TV.
How can you maximise your chances of living till you're 100? Why do many of us experience so many spooky coincidences? Should I take an umbrella? These are just some of the everyday questions the film tackles as it moves between Cambridge, Las Vegas, San Francisco and... Reading.
Yet the film isn't shy of some rather loftier questions. After all, our lives are pulled about and pushed around by the mysterious workings of chance, fate, luck, call it what you will. But what actually is chance? Is it something fundamental to the fabric of the universe? Or rather, as the French 18th century scientist Pierre Laplace put it, 'merely a measure of our ignorance'.
Along the way Spiegelhalter is thrilled to discover One Million Random Digits, probably the most boring book in the world, but one full of hidden patterns and shapes. He introduces us to the cheery little unit called the micromort (a one-in-a-million chance of dying), taking the rational decision to go sky-diving because doing so only increases his risk of dying this year from 7000 to 7007 micromorts. And in one sequence he uses the latest infographics to demonstrate how life expectancy has increased in his lifetime and how it is affected by our lifestyle choices - drinking, obesity, smoking and exercise.
Did you know that by running regularly for half an hour a day you can expect to extend your life by half an hour a day? So all very well... if you like running.
Ultimately, Tails You Win: The Science of Chance tells the story of how we discovered how chance works, and even to work out the odds for the future; how we tried - but so often failed - to conquer it; and how we may finally be learning to love it, increasingly setting uncertainty itself to work to help crack some of science's more intractable problems.
Other contributors include former England cricketer Ed Smith, whose career was cut down in its prime through a freak, unlucky accident; Las Vegas gambling legend Mike Shackleford, the self-styled 'Wizard of Odds'; and chief economist of the Bank of England, Spencer Dale.
Documentaries
My Tattoo Addiction
Channel 4, 10:00-11:05pm
This film explores the world of tattoos; the artists, the reasons why people have them and what happens when they regret them.
From a drunken dare to tattoo obsessions, My Tattoo Addiction seeks to discover what people's tattoos say about their lives and tells some of the compelling stories that lie beneath the surface of body art.
There are over an estimated 20 million tattoos in Britain and full arm, leg, chest, back and even head tattoos are now more popular than ever.
Reflecting the changing nature of tattoos and the industry, the film follows contributors who have all developed a unique relationship with their tattoos: the ex-holiday rep with 14 tattoos, including several expletives and one of a booze cruise's website emblazoned on his chest; the tattoo addict with facial tattoos; the obsessive Miley Cyrus fan; the 67-year-old seeking to cover up the racist tattoos of his youth, and his tattooist daughter, who has her five dead cats on her back.
The film also hears about the tattoos that people have lived to regret and many tattooists explain that a substantial amount of their business - one estimates as much as 40% - is fixing badly inked or self-administered tattoos.
This uplifting, warm, and often eye-watering documentary discovers, through candid interviews, what leads people to go under the needle, and how fixing a bad tattoo can mean facing more than just the physical reminder of your past.
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Thursday 4 October 2012
Off-air recordings for week 6-12 October 2012
Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
*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 6th October
Arts, Culture and the Media
Arena: The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour Revisited
BBC2, 9:45-10:45pm
Arena presents the greatest Beatles story never told, a blockbuster double bill: a documentary full of fabulous Beatles archive material never shown before anywhere in the world. And the first screening for over 30 years of a lost and forgotten treasure, the only film conceived and directed by The Beatles themselves - Magical Mystery Tour.
Part One - Magical Mystery Tour Revisited
Songs you’ll never forget, the film you’ve never seen, and a story that’s never been heard. In 1967, in the wake of the extraordinary impact of Sgt. Pepper, The Beatles made a film – a dreamlike story of a coach daytrip, a magical mystery tour. It was seen by a third of the nation, at 8.35pm on BBC One on Boxing Day - an expectant public, hoping for some light entertainment for a family audience.
Magical Mystery Tour was greeted with outrage and derision by middle England and the establishment media. “How dare they?”, they cried – “They’re not film directors, who do they think they are?” they howled. Where were the four lovable moptops of Help! and A Hard Day’s Night?
What propelled The Beatles to make this surreal, startling and – at the time – utterly misunderstood film? Contributors include Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Peter Fonda, Martin Scorsese, Terry Gilliam, Paul Merton and Neil Innes.
Arts, Culture and the Media
The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour
BBC2, 10:45-11:40pm
Part Two – The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour
Fully restored to the highest technical standard with a remixed soundtrack, Magical Mystery Tour comes out of the shadows and onto the screen.
By the end of 1967, The Beatles had achieved a creativity unprecedented in popular music.
Their triumphant summer release Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was both avant garde and an instant hit. It went straight to No.1 in June and remained there for the rest of the year. They immersed themselves in the fiercely radical art of the new counterculture, and decided to make a film on their own terms, not as pop stars but as artists. However, was their adoring public ready for the move?
Roll up, roll up for the Mystery Tour! Made in England by The Beatles
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Sunday 7th October
Factual; History; Documentaries
Andrew Marr's History of the World
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/8- The Word and the Sword
In the third episode of this landmark series charting the story of human civilisation, Andrew Marr plunges into the spiritual revolutions that shook the world between 300 BC and 700 AD.
This was an age that saw the bloody prince Ashoka turn to Buddhism in India; the ill-fated union of Julius Caesar and Egypt's Cleopatra; the unstoppable rise of Christianity across the Roman Empire and the dramatic spread of Islam from Spain to Central Asia.
Each dramatic story pits the might of kings and rulers against the power of faith. But Andrew Marr discovers that the most potent human force on the planet came from the combination of faith and military power. Both Christianity and Islam created new empires of 'the word and the sword'.
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Monday 8th October
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
The Digital Human
BBC Radio 4, 4:30-5:00pm, 2/8
Alex Krotoski explores what the digital world tells us about ourselves. This week: Influence. How has the digital world changed the way opinions are voiced and shaped?
News
Panorama: Return of the Supergrass
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm
The recent shootings of two Manchester policewomen have highlighted Britain's problem with violent crime. Now a previously-discredited weapon is being used to try to fight the most serious and organised crime - the supergrass, criminals prepared to turn on their own and give evidence in court.
Panorama investigates the remarkable deals that these often violent gangsters are being offered to become the next generation of supergrasses. The agreements have led to gunmen getting off life sentences. A teenage gang member has also escaped prosecution, despite helping to cover up a fatal shooting. And Panorama reveals cases where the credibility of the supergrass is already in question.
Factual; Documentaries
Creationism: Conspiracy Road Trip
BBC3, 9:00-10:00pm
Comedian Andrew Maxwell takes five British creationists to the west coast of America to try to convince them that evolution is true and their ideas are, well, crackers. Stuck on a bus across 2,000 miles of dustbowl roads with these religious fundamentalists, Maxwell tackles some mind-boggling ideas. Could the Earth be only 6,000 years old, and did humans and T-Rex live side by side?
It's a bumpy ride as he's confronted with some very un-Christian behaviour along the way, but by the end could he possibly win over any of the Bible-bashers with hard scientific fact... and keep a straight face?
Crime; Documentaries
The Great Train Robbery
ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm
"If it was going to be your brother on the train or your husband, or a friend of yours, and they were brutally attacked like that and terrified. Would you think these guys were cool, that they were heroes? I don’t think you would." - Nick Russell-Pavier, author
It was the crime of the century – and nearly 50 years on, this brand new 60-minute documentary for ITV1 examines the Great Train Robbery. This documentary looks at the heist from the moment it was carried out at a desolate railway bridge, the way it captured the public imagination and elevated Ronnie Biggs and his partners in crime from small-time crooks to folklore figures. Yet is the real truth dark and disturbing? Some glaring questions remain unanswered. Was it really a victimless crime? What is the significance of the men who got away? And with only £400,000 of the £2.6 million they stole recovered, what happened to the rest of the money? The documentary features brand new interviews with key figures including Ronnie Biggs's wife Charmian, relatives of the robbers, and the policeman who discovered the gang's hideout at Leatherslade Farm, alongside rare ITV archive interviews with the robbers, as well as iconic archive film of the crime’s aftermath. The Great Train Robbery also challenges romantic folklore surrounding the robbers and provides an insight into a landmark moment in time as Britain stood on the cusp of major social and political upheaval and the robbers' generation - too young to have served in the war - were the first to be seduced by the promise of a better lifestyle as consumerism began to take hold of society.
Charmian Biggs, talking about her husband Ronnie, said it hadn't been his intention to continue his previous criminal ways. "I had extracted a promise from him when he married me that he wouldn’t go into anything criminal and I believed him. And I think he meant it at the time." Historian Dominic Sandbrook explains the context in which the robbery took place at the start of the 1960s. “People have this kind of Robin Hood fantasy if you like, of the Great Train robbers as actually some sort of Ealing comedy enterprise. Which of course it isn’t. These people are career criminals, who are out to get what they can for themselves.”
Train robber Bruce Reynolds explains the way he felt at the time: "The way I looked at it I was an outlaw, that society didn’t care for me and I didn’t particularly care for society."
The documentary looks at how some media reports of the gang's robbery of a Royal Mail money train in Buckinghamshire, led to a popular perception of them as folk heroes, despite the seriousness of the crime. By the time the world woke up to the news of the caper, the robbers had scarpered to Leatherslade Farm to lay low. Yet they abandoned the farm without covering their tracks. Local police officer John Woolley tells the documentary how he uncovered evidence of the robbery under a trapdoor. “Even in the half light I could see that that cellar was absolutely choc-a-block with bulging sacks. And as the top flopped open I could see parcel wrappers, bank note wrappers, consignment notes, all bearing the names of the famous high-street banks.”
In London, times had changed for the robbers' families. Marilyn Wisbey, daughter of Tommy, says: “I mean, one minute we would buy clothes from a catalogue and the next minute we’d be in a black taxi down to Knightsbridge and Harrods.” But Charmian Biggs recounts the police raids and arrests that swiftly ensued.
She says: “A whole group of policemen, eight perhaps, arrived at the house. I answered the door. They barged in, in September after the robbery, about two o’clock in the afternoon. They asked for him, he was at work, I offered to ring him but was told I couldn’t use the phone. I was made to sit down and say nothing till Ron came home.”
At trial, all but one pleaded not guilty, and suggested that the evidence at Leatherslade Farm was planted. The identity of three men who took part in the raid but never stood trial has never been revealed by police or the robbers, says Nick Russell-Pavier, an author and expert on the Great Train Robbery.
“The guys who were prosecuted successfully claimed they were fitted up. So if they were fitted up why couldn’t the police fit up the three guys who got away. The answer is they weren’t fitted up.” The robbers were given a total of 307 years in prison - up to 30 years each. Later, after Charlie Wilson escaped from Winson Green prison in Birmingham, Ronnie Biggs went over the wall at HMP Wandsworth and famously went on the run. But years later, most of the families had little to show for the robbery, says Nick Reynolds, son of train robber Bruce, who also went on the run before his arrest. “The money went on just being on the run, its an expensive game laundering, false passports, keeping one step ahead of the law.”
Former ITN reporter Gerald Seymour explains the impact the crime had on the robbers, and their families.
“What a waste of some clever bright guys who at the fork in the road went left when maybe there was a right, and they paid so dearly for it. I can’t say that any of them would say it was worth it.”
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
The Shock of the New
BBC4, 11:00pm-12:00am, 7/8 - Culture As Nature
Robert Hughes goes Pop when he examines the art that referred to the man-made world that fed off culture itself via works by Rauchenberg, Warhol and Lichtenstein.
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Tuesday 9th October
Factual; History; Documentaries
The Story of Wales
BBC2, 7:00-8:00pm, 4/6 - Furnace of Change
Huw Edwards presents this major television history of Wales, showing the country in ways it has never been seen before. It is 1485: a young nobleman sails to the land of his fathers from exile in France. His mission - to capture the English crown. For the first time, a self-proclaimed Welshman will be king of England. Under the dynasty he founds, Wales becomes united with England. For every generation of Welsh people to come, the consequences are huge. But exactly what it means - for the next 250 years, at least - depends on whether you are a landowner or one of the ordinary people.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Life Stories
Edna O'Brien: Life Stories
BBC4, 10:45-11:40pm
Now 81 and due to publish her memoirs in October 2012, renowned Irish novelist Edna O'Brien has opened her home and her heart to documentary filmmakers.
O'Brien's journey from Tuamgraney, County Clare to the centre of literary life in London has involved rebellion, censorship, elopement, motherhood, divorce, custody battles and the rearing of two sons as a single mother, as well as a glittering social life and a growing profile as a public personality and commentator.
Based on a series of frank, moving and entertaining interviews with O'Brien and her two sons Carlo and Sasha Gebler, the film offers a privileged glimpse of O'Brien's more private life, her writing process and rituals - a fascinating portrait of a woman whose infinite variety and ageless spirit make her an icon at home and abroad.
Edna O'Brien's was, and still is, a life lived in technicolour. She was a key figure in the social and literary whirl of sixties and seventies London and is probably the only Irish novelist who credits the taking of LSD with influencing her prose style in the early seventies.
The documentary touches on tales of the writer's social encounters with many of that period's biggest names, including Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor and Robert Mitchum. But all the while, in her life and in her work O'Brien was dealing with a complex emotional life, including her tangled relationship with her parents and her ambivalence towards Ireland. The resulting film gives unprecedented insight, encompassing the sweep of a long career, into one of the great survivors in Irish literature.
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Wednesday 10th October
Factual; History; Documentaries
The Story of Wales
BBC2, 7:00-8:00pm, 5/6 - A New Beginning
Huw Edwards presents this major television history of Wales, showing our country in ways it's never been seen before. It's boom time as Wales becomes known, the world over, for one particular product - Welsh steam coal, the best you can get. In the space of 50 years, 'black gold' builds a new Wales. The coalfield pulls in hundreds of thousands of migrants with a different language and culture, becoming a bustling modern world of its own. Yet no sooner has Wales found itself at the centre of global trade, than the Depression causes an industrial crash with a bitter social fallout.
Factual; Documentaries
Welcome to India
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/3
This observational series continues to explore what life is really like in some of the densest neighbourhoods on the planet: the backstreets of India's megacities. A popular tactic for people here, so adept at operating in a crowded world, is turning the stuff others would call 'waste' into an opportunity.
Johora started out as a rag-picker, but through building a bottle recycling business on a railway embankment, she has big ambitions for her family of seven kids. When the local gangsters increase their protection payment demands, she boldly takes out a big loan and attempts to push her illegal business to another level.
And it's not just small waste. Kanye uses a handheld blowtorch to cut up ships discarded by the rest of the world, helping satisfy India's thirst for steel. A doting father, his dangerous but relatively well paid job educates his three daughters and provides his ticket to a brighter future. But his hopes are in jeopardy when he is laid off.
Ashik buys up beef fat from the abattoir, and proudly renders it down to make tallow. It looks disgusting, even before he is plagued by a maggot infestation. But this thrifty use of 'waste' may well be destined for your soap or cosmetics.
Crime; Documentaries
Born to Kill? The Hollywoood Hillside Strangler
Channel 5, 11:55pm-12:40am
Hollywood has always had a dark side, but Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono were perhaps its darkest.
Serial killers usually work alone but Bianchi and Buono would defy all the rules. In the late seventies, these 'killing cousins' would commit a series of brazen murders that left the women of Los Angeles terrified to walk the streets.
Their murders plumbed the depths of depravity and their cold heartedness and forensic awareness left detectives angry and frustrated.
On his capture, Kenneth Bianchi would make an audacious attempt to convince the world he had multiple personalities and was not responsible for the murders.
Bianchi and Buonowould kidnap, rape, torture and snuff out the lives of 12 innocent young girls, but what had led to this extraordinary collaboration in killing? Were they both born to kill?
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Thursday 11th October
Factual; History; Documentaries
The Story of Wales
BBC2, 7:00-8:00pm, 6/6 - England & Wales
Huw Edwards presents this major television history of Wales, showing our country in ways it's never been seen before. In the last seventy years, Wales changes more rapidly than ever. In this final episode, a Welshman battles to set up Britain's most cherished institution, the British parliament votes to drown a Welsh valley, a new generation of sporting heroes sets the flags waving and television itself becomes part of the story of Wales. We're a nation of commuters and consumers, but our sense of history has revived: we are a people with a story - and that story gives us power.
Factual; Talks and Presentations; Documentaries
RTS Huw Wheldon Lecture 2012
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:00am
BBC foreign correspondent Lyse Doucet delivers this year's Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture, talking about how social media is transforming broadcast journalism. She examines the effect that social networking sites and tools had on the reporting of major stories from 2011, including the Arab Spring and the London riots, and considers the lessons news organisations must learn as they seek to harness the power of this evolving resource.
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Friday
Factual; History; Documentaries
Servants: The True Story of Life Below Stairs
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/3 - No Going Back
As we reach the final part of Dr Pamela Cox’s informative series, we find that Britain’s domestic servants are kicking against the established order. The First World War changed the social landscape for ever, landowners freed their servants to fight while women who would otherwise have been part of the “servant class” played their part. They took over the jobs of absent men, including difficult and dangerous munitions work, and weren’t prepared simply to slide back into their former servile roles once the war was over.
Cox looks at the measures used by Britain’s ladies to find maids, including trying to lure them with a promise to ditch that hated symbol of deference, the servant’s cap.
Pamela Cox explores how the idea of a `servant class' came to an end in the 20th century. She reveals why filling male roles in stately homes and factories during the First World War left many female servants reluctant to return to their old lives, and how the rise of semi-detached suburban homes during the 1930s led to major changes in domestic workers' duties. Finally, she charts how women's employment changed in the years following the Second World War, and examines the roles of domestic employees in 21st-century Britain.
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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 6th October
Arts, Culture and the Media
Arena: The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour Revisited
BBC2, 9:45-10:45pm
Arena presents the greatest Beatles story never told, a blockbuster double bill: a documentary full of fabulous Beatles archive material never shown before anywhere in the world. And the first screening for over 30 years of a lost and forgotten treasure, the only film conceived and directed by The Beatles themselves - Magical Mystery Tour.
Part One - Magical Mystery Tour Revisited
Songs you’ll never forget, the film you’ve never seen, and a story that’s never been heard. In 1967, in the wake of the extraordinary impact of Sgt. Pepper, The Beatles made a film – a dreamlike story of a coach daytrip, a magical mystery tour. It was seen by a third of the nation, at 8.35pm on BBC One on Boxing Day - an expectant public, hoping for some light entertainment for a family audience.
Magical Mystery Tour was greeted with outrage and derision by middle England and the establishment media. “How dare they?”, they cried – “They’re not film directors, who do they think they are?” they howled. Where were the four lovable moptops of Help! and A Hard Day’s Night?
What propelled The Beatles to make this surreal, startling and – at the time – utterly misunderstood film? Contributors include Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Peter Fonda, Martin Scorsese, Terry Gilliam, Paul Merton and Neil Innes.
Arts, Culture and the Media
The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour
BBC2, 10:45-11:40pm
Part Two – The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour
Fully restored to the highest technical standard with a remixed soundtrack, Magical Mystery Tour comes out of the shadows and onto the screen.
By the end of 1967, The Beatles had achieved a creativity unprecedented in popular music.
Their triumphant summer release Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was both avant garde and an instant hit. It went straight to No.1 in June and remained there for the rest of the year. They immersed themselves in the fiercely radical art of the new counterculture, and decided to make a film on their own terms, not as pop stars but as artists. However, was their adoring public ready for the move?
Roll up, roll up for the Mystery Tour! Made in England by The Beatles
____________________________________________
Sunday 7th October
Factual; History; Documentaries
Andrew Marr's History of the World
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/8- The Word and the Sword
In the third episode of this landmark series charting the story of human civilisation, Andrew Marr plunges into the spiritual revolutions that shook the world between 300 BC and 700 AD.
This was an age that saw the bloody prince Ashoka turn to Buddhism in India; the ill-fated union of Julius Caesar and Egypt's Cleopatra; the unstoppable rise of Christianity across the Roman Empire and the dramatic spread of Islam from Spain to Central Asia.
Each dramatic story pits the might of kings and rulers against the power of faith. But Andrew Marr discovers that the most potent human force on the planet came from the combination of faith and military power. Both Christianity and Islam created new empires of 'the word and the sword'.
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Monday 8th October
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
The Digital Human
BBC Radio 4, 4:30-5:00pm, 2/8
Alex Krotoski explores what the digital world tells us about ourselves. This week: Influence. How has the digital world changed the way opinions are voiced and shaped?
News
Panorama: Return of the Supergrass
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm
The recent shootings of two Manchester policewomen have highlighted Britain's problem with violent crime. Now a previously-discredited weapon is being used to try to fight the most serious and organised crime - the supergrass, criminals prepared to turn on their own and give evidence in court.
Panorama investigates the remarkable deals that these often violent gangsters are being offered to become the next generation of supergrasses. The agreements have led to gunmen getting off life sentences. A teenage gang member has also escaped prosecution, despite helping to cover up a fatal shooting. And Panorama reveals cases where the credibility of the supergrass is already in question.
Factual; Documentaries
Creationism: Conspiracy Road Trip
BBC3, 9:00-10:00pm
Comedian Andrew Maxwell takes five British creationists to the west coast of America to try to convince them that evolution is true and their ideas are, well, crackers. Stuck on a bus across 2,000 miles of dustbowl roads with these religious fundamentalists, Maxwell tackles some mind-boggling ideas. Could the Earth be only 6,000 years old, and did humans and T-Rex live side by side?
It's a bumpy ride as he's confronted with some very un-Christian behaviour along the way, but by the end could he possibly win over any of the Bible-bashers with hard scientific fact... and keep a straight face?
Crime; Documentaries
The Great Train Robbery
ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm
"If it was going to be your brother on the train or your husband, or a friend of yours, and they were brutally attacked like that and terrified. Would you think these guys were cool, that they were heroes? I don’t think you would." - Nick Russell-Pavier, author
It was the crime of the century – and nearly 50 years on, this brand new 60-minute documentary for ITV1 examines the Great Train Robbery. This documentary looks at the heist from the moment it was carried out at a desolate railway bridge, the way it captured the public imagination and elevated Ronnie Biggs and his partners in crime from small-time crooks to folklore figures. Yet is the real truth dark and disturbing? Some glaring questions remain unanswered. Was it really a victimless crime? What is the significance of the men who got away? And with only £400,000 of the £2.6 million they stole recovered, what happened to the rest of the money? The documentary features brand new interviews with key figures including Ronnie Biggs's wife Charmian, relatives of the robbers, and the policeman who discovered the gang's hideout at Leatherslade Farm, alongside rare ITV archive interviews with the robbers, as well as iconic archive film of the crime’s aftermath. The Great Train Robbery also challenges romantic folklore surrounding the robbers and provides an insight into a landmark moment in time as Britain stood on the cusp of major social and political upheaval and the robbers' generation - too young to have served in the war - were the first to be seduced by the promise of a better lifestyle as consumerism began to take hold of society.
Charmian Biggs, talking about her husband Ronnie, said it hadn't been his intention to continue his previous criminal ways. "I had extracted a promise from him when he married me that he wouldn’t go into anything criminal and I believed him. And I think he meant it at the time." Historian Dominic Sandbrook explains the context in which the robbery took place at the start of the 1960s. “People have this kind of Robin Hood fantasy if you like, of the Great Train robbers as actually some sort of Ealing comedy enterprise. Which of course it isn’t. These people are career criminals, who are out to get what they can for themselves.”
Train robber Bruce Reynolds explains the way he felt at the time: "The way I looked at it I was an outlaw, that society didn’t care for me and I didn’t particularly care for society."
The documentary looks at how some media reports of the gang's robbery of a Royal Mail money train in Buckinghamshire, led to a popular perception of them as folk heroes, despite the seriousness of the crime. By the time the world woke up to the news of the caper, the robbers had scarpered to Leatherslade Farm to lay low. Yet they abandoned the farm without covering their tracks. Local police officer John Woolley tells the documentary how he uncovered evidence of the robbery under a trapdoor. “Even in the half light I could see that that cellar was absolutely choc-a-block with bulging sacks. And as the top flopped open I could see parcel wrappers, bank note wrappers, consignment notes, all bearing the names of the famous high-street banks.”
In London, times had changed for the robbers' families. Marilyn Wisbey, daughter of Tommy, says: “I mean, one minute we would buy clothes from a catalogue and the next minute we’d be in a black taxi down to Knightsbridge and Harrods.” But Charmian Biggs recounts the police raids and arrests that swiftly ensued.
She says: “A whole group of policemen, eight perhaps, arrived at the house. I answered the door. They barged in, in September after the robbery, about two o’clock in the afternoon. They asked for him, he was at work, I offered to ring him but was told I couldn’t use the phone. I was made to sit down and say nothing till Ron came home.”
At trial, all but one pleaded not guilty, and suggested that the evidence at Leatherslade Farm was planted. The identity of three men who took part in the raid but never stood trial has never been revealed by police or the robbers, says Nick Russell-Pavier, an author and expert on the Great Train Robbery.
“The guys who were prosecuted successfully claimed they were fitted up. So if they were fitted up why couldn’t the police fit up the three guys who got away. The answer is they weren’t fitted up.” The robbers were given a total of 307 years in prison - up to 30 years each. Later, after Charlie Wilson escaped from Winson Green prison in Birmingham, Ronnie Biggs went over the wall at HMP Wandsworth and famously went on the run. But years later, most of the families had little to show for the robbery, says Nick Reynolds, son of train robber Bruce, who also went on the run before his arrest. “The money went on just being on the run, its an expensive game laundering, false passports, keeping one step ahead of the law.”
Former ITN reporter Gerald Seymour explains the impact the crime had on the robbers, and their families.
“What a waste of some clever bright guys who at the fork in the road went left when maybe there was a right, and they paid so dearly for it. I can’t say that any of them would say it was worth it.”
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
The Shock of the New
BBC4, 11:00pm-12:00am, 7/8 - Culture As Nature
Robert Hughes goes Pop when he examines the art that referred to the man-made world that fed off culture itself via works by Rauchenberg, Warhol and Lichtenstein.
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Tuesday 9th October
Factual; History; Documentaries
The Story of Wales
BBC2, 7:00-8:00pm, 4/6 - Furnace of Change
Huw Edwards presents this major television history of Wales, showing the country in ways it has never been seen before. It is 1485: a young nobleman sails to the land of his fathers from exile in France. His mission - to capture the English crown. For the first time, a self-proclaimed Welshman will be king of England. Under the dynasty he founds, Wales becomes united with England. For every generation of Welsh people to come, the consequences are huge. But exactly what it means - for the next 250 years, at least - depends on whether you are a landowner or one of the ordinary people.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Life Stories
Edna O'Brien: Life Stories
BBC4, 10:45-11:40pm
Now 81 and due to publish her memoirs in October 2012, renowned Irish novelist Edna O'Brien has opened her home and her heart to documentary filmmakers.
O'Brien's journey from Tuamgraney, County Clare to the centre of literary life in London has involved rebellion, censorship, elopement, motherhood, divorce, custody battles and the rearing of two sons as a single mother, as well as a glittering social life and a growing profile as a public personality and commentator.
Based on a series of frank, moving and entertaining interviews with O'Brien and her two sons Carlo and Sasha Gebler, the film offers a privileged glimpse of O'Brien's more private life, her writing process and rituals - a fascinating portrait of a woman whose infinite variety and ageless spirit make her an icon at home and abroad.
Edna O'Brien's was, and still is, a life lived in technicolour. She was a key figure in the social and literary whirl of sixties and seventies London and is probably the only Irish novelist who credits the taking of LSD with influencing her prose style in the early seventies.
The documentary touches on tales of the writer's social encounters with many of that period's biggest names, including Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor and Robert Mitchum. But all the while, in her life and in her work O'Brien was dealing with a complex emotional life, including her tangled relationship with her parents and her ambivalence towards Ireland. The resulting film gives unprecedented insight, encompassing the sweep of a long career, into one of the great survivors in Irish literature.
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Wednesday 10th October
Factual; History; Documentaries
The Story of Wales
BBC2, 7:00-8:00pm, 5/6 - A New Beginning
Huw Edwards presents this major television history of Wales, showing our country in ways it's never been seen before. It's boom time as Wales becomes known, the world over, for one particular product - Welsh steam coal, the best you can get. In the space of 50 years, 'black gold' builds a new Wales. The coalfield pulls in hundreds of thousands of migrants with a different language and culture, becoming a bustling modern world of its own. Yet no sooner has Wales found itself at the centre of global trade, than the Depression causes an industrial crash with a bitter social fallout.
Factual; Documentaries
Welcome to India
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/3
This observational series continues to explore what life is really like in some of the densest neighbourhoods on the planet: the backstreets of India's megacities. A popular tactic for people here, so adept at operating in a crowded world, is turning the stuff others would call 'waste' into an opportunity.
Johora started out as a rag-picker, but through building a bottle recycling business on a railway embankment, she has big ambitions for her family of seven kids. When the local gangsters increase their protection payment demands, she boldly takes out a big loan and attempts to push her illegal business to another level.
And it's not just small waste. Kanye uses a handheld blowtorch to cut up ships discarded by the rest of the world, helping satisfy India's thirst for steel. A doting father, his dangerous but relatively well paid job educates his three daughters and provides his ticket to a brighter future. But his hopes are in jeopardy when he is laid off.
Ashik buys up beef fat from the abattoir, and proudly renders it down to make tallow. It looks disgusting, even before he is plagued by a maggot infestation. But this thrifty use of 'waste' may well be destined for your soap or cosmetics.
Crime; Documentaries
Born to Kill? The Hollywoood Hillside Strangler
Channel 5, 11:55pm-12:40am
Hollywood has always had a dark side, but Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono were perhaps its darkest.
Serial killers usually work alone but Bianchi and Buono would defy all the rules. In the late seventies, these 'killing cousins' would commit a series of brazen murders that left the women of Los Angeles terrified to walk the streets.
Their murders plumbed the depths of depravity and their cold heartedness and forensic awareness left detectives angry and frustrated.
On his capture, Kenneth Bianchi would make an audacious attempt to convince the world he had multiple personalities and was not responsible for the murders.
Bianchi and Buonowould kidnap, rape, torture and snuff out the lives of 12 innocent young girls, but what had led to this extraordinary collaboration in killing? Were they both born to kill?
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Thursday 11th October
Factual; History; Documentaries
The Story of Wales
BBC2, 7:00-8:00pm, 6/6 - England & Wales
Huw Edwards presents this major television history of Wales, showing our country in ways it's never been seen before. In the last seventy years, Wales changes more rapidly than ever. In this final episode, a Welshman battles to set up Britain's most cherished institution, the British parliament votes to drown a Welsh valley, a new generation of sporting heroes sets the flags waving and television itself becomes part of the story of Wales. We're a nation of commuters and consumers, but our sense of history has revived: we are a people with a story - and that story gives us power.
Factual; Talks and Presentations; Documentaries
RTS Huw Wheldon Lecture 2012
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:00am
BBC foreign correspondent Lyse Doucet delivers this year's Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture, talking about how social media is transforming broadcast journalism. She examines the effect that social networking sites and tools had on the reporting of major stories from 2011, including the Arab Spring and the London riots, and considers the lessons news organisations must learn as they seek to harness the power of this evolving resource.
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Friday
Factual; History; Documentaries
Servants: The True Story of Life Below Stairs
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/3 - No Going Back
As we reach the final part of Dr Pamela Cox’s informative series, we find that Britain’s domestic servants are kicking against the established order. The First World War changed the social landscape for ever, landowners freed their servants to fight while women who would otherwise have been part of the “servant class” played their part. They took over the jobs of absent men, including difficult and dangerous munitions work, and weren’t prepared simply to slide back into their former servile roles once the war was over.
Cox looks at the measures used by Britain’s ladies to find maids, including trying to lure them with a promise to ditch that hated symbol of deference, the servant’s cap.
Pamela Cox explores how the idea of a `servant class' came to an end in the 20th century. She reveals why filling male roles in stately homes and factories during the First World War left many female servants reluctant to return to their old lives, and how the rise of semi-detached suburban homes during the 1930s led to major changes in domestic workers' duties. Finally, she charts how women's employment changed in the years following the Second World War, and examines the roles of domestic employees in 21st-century Britain.
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