Off-air recordings for week 24-30 January 2009

Please email Rich Deakin < rdeakin@glos.ac.uk > if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*

If there are any other programmes that you would like recording please let me know and will see if I can accomodate your request.

1929: The Great Crash - "In 1929 Groucho Marx, a sceptical investor who had nonetheless put all his savings in the booming stock market, went to see his broker and asked in amazement how it was that share prices kept going up and up. His broker placated him with reassuring words about the new worldwide market and Marx continued to invest. In the crash that followed that October he lost everything he'd earned from his films. Like the rest of this programme, it's a salutary tale with thumping reminders of the present woes in the economy. The programme only has to walk us patiently through the history of the crash and the parallels fairly scream at you, although the markets of the 1920s were, it seems, more corrupt: "It was a big casino," recalls one contributor "and it was rigged by professional investors." The really gloomy part of the story is the ending: that a crash led to a depression, which ultimately led to war."

As You Like It - "Kenneth Branagh's imaginative adaptation of Shakespeare's play celebrates the enduring power of love in all its many disguises.
Witty and playful, the story is a magical romantic adventure in which Rosalind and Orlando's famous courtship is played out against a backdrop of political rivalry, banishment and exile in the Forest of Arden."

Explore: Patagonia to the Pampas - 1/4 "In the first of a new series, Simon Reeve leads a team of presenters on a journey through the spectacular landscapes of Argentina, from the vast ice fields of Patagonia to the wide open plains of the Pampas. On the way we take in one of the greatest matches in world football, visit a penguin colony on the edge and a Bishop with a rather unorthodox interest in Evita."

Time Team: Toga Town - 4/13 "Location: Caerwent, South Wales"

Robert Burns: The People's Poet - "Writer Andrew O'Hagan asks what made Robert Burns one of the world's favourite poets, as Scotland prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of one of its most famous sons. He travels through the landscape of modern Scotland in a poetic journey to the places that inspired Burns and to discover the story of his wild and dramatic life."

Mark Lawson Talks to Bill Bryson - "Anglophile travel writer Bill Bryson, whose books include The Lost Continent and Notes From a Small Island, chats to Mark Lawson about how a boy from Iowa who dropped out of college has ended up as Chancellor of Durham University. He also discusses how he shares the British sense of humour, his techniques for tackling litter louts and his childhood superpowers."

What Darwin Didn't Know - "Documentary which tells the story of evolution theory since Darwin postulated it in 1859's On the Origin of Species.
The theory of evolution by natural selection is now scientific orthodoxy, but when it was unveiled it caused a storm of controversy, from fellow scientists as well as religious types. They criticised it for being short on evidence and long on assertion and Darwin, being the honest scientist that he was, agreed with them. He knew that his theory was riddled with 'difficulties', but he entrusted future generations to complete his work and prove the essential truth of his vision, which is what scientists have been doing for the past 150 years.
Evolutionary biologist Professor Armand Marie Leroi reveals the scientific progress that brought about the triumphant renaissance of Darwin's vision, and argues that the next challenge, using the new science of evolutionary developmental biology, is to take that vision further by attempting to predict what will evolve, as opposed to just explaining what has already evolved."

Channel 4 Education - Rat-A-Tat-Tat Phonics - "Educational series experimenting with words and sounds to make them lively and interesting."

Explore: Argentina's Dirty War - "Follow up to Sunday's programme looks at how the horror of what occured during Argentina's brutal military dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s is now emerging. Maria Belen Gentile is part of a campaign for justice, but how should this stretch out to victims on both sides of the political divide?"

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* This applies to staff members 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.