Off-air recordings 8-14 October 2011

Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk , or fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
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Monday 17th October

Documentaries; Science; Technology

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

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

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

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


Documentaries; Factual; Science and Nature

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

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

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

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


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Life Stories

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

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

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

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Tuesday 18th October


Documentaries; Crime and Justice; Factual; Politics

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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Wednesday 19th October 2011

News

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

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

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


Factual; Documentaries; Science and Nature

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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Thursday 20th October 2011

Drama

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

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


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*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.