Off-air recordings for week 21-27 January 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 21st January

Art, culture and the Media; Documentaries

Catfish
More4, 10:00-11:55pm

When New York photographer Nev Schulman receives a painting based on one of his photographs from Abby, an eight-year-old child prodigy in Michigan, they become Facebook friends, and Nev develops online relationships with Abby's family, in particular with her attractive elder half-sister Megan.


But is everything as it seems? Nev travels to Michigan to find out.

A reality thriller that is a shocking product of our times, Catfish is a riveting story of love, deception and grace within a labyrinth of online intrigue.

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Sunday 22nd January

Factual; History; Documentaries

The Last Explorers
BBC2, 6:00-7:00pm, 1/4 Livingstone

Neil Oliver follows in the footsteps of four Scottish explorers who planted ideas rather than flags - ideas that shaped the modern world we know today. In this first programme, Neil travels down the Zambesi river to reveal how David Livingstone took the faith of his nation to the ends of the Earth and exploited his celebrity to end the slave trade. His was a moral mission: to reshape British values and bring commerce, Christianity and civilisation to the African continent.


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Tuesday 24th January

Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and the Environment; Documentaries

Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3 The Great Dying

It is estimated that 99 per cent of species have become extinct and there have been times when life's hold on Earth has been so precarious it seems it hangs on by a thread.


This series focuses on the survivors - the old-timers - whose biographies stretch back millions of years and who show how it is possible to survive a mass extinction event which wipes out nearly all of its neighbours. The Natural History Museum's Professor Richard Fortey discovers what allows the very few to carry on going - perhaps not for ever, but certainly far beyond the life expectancy of normal species. What makes a survivor when all around drop like flies?

In this episode Professor Fortey focuses on a series of cataclysms over a million year period, 250 million years ago.



Factual; Politics; Documentaries

The World Against Apartheid: Have You Heard From Johannesburg?
BBC2, 10:00-11:00pm, 1/5, The Road To Resistance

Ten years in the making, this series explores how a violent and racist government was destroyed by the concerted efforts of men and women working on multiple fronts inside and outside South Africa for more than three decades. Featuring archive of the struggle never seen before on television and interviews with the major players, it is one of the most fascinating stories of the last century.

In this opening episode, Oliver Tambo leads citizens of the world in their condemnation of South Africa's cruel and racist new regime. The world reacts with horror when protesters are gunned down in the town of Sharpeville and the entire ANC leadership is forced underground or imprisoned. Nelson Mandela is jailed for life and ANC deputy president Oliver Tambo escapes into exile, embarking on what will become a 30-year journey to engage the world in the struggle to bring democracy to South Africa. With resistance inside South Africa effectively crushed by the brutal apartheid regime, the fate of the liberation struggle is in Tambo's hands.



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Wednesday 25th January

Factual; Science and Nature

Natural World: Jungle Gremlins of Java
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm

The slow loris is the real-life gremlin, extremely cute but with a venom that can kill. Now it's also a YouTube superstar with millions of hits. Dr Anna Nekaris travels to the jungles of Java to solve the riddle of its toxic bite, but a shocking discovery awaits.




Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media

Ken Russell: A Bit of a Devil
BBC2, 11:00pm-12:00am

Following the recent death of Ken Russell, Alan Yentob looks back over the career of the flamboyant film director responsible for Women In Love, Tommy and The Devils. Friends and admirers - including Glenda Jackson, Terry Gilliam, Twiggy, Melvyn Bragg, Robert Powell and Roger Daltrey - recall a pioneering documentary-maker, talented photographer and fearless film director.


When at the BBC in the Sixties, Russell first established his name with brilliant documentaries on Elgar, Delius and Debussy. Not only did he bring alive their music with inspiring images, he also humanised them by using actors, something unthinkable in factual film-making at the time. His unfettered imagination soon led to feature films. Women In Love earned Glenda Jackson an Oscar and notoriety for a nude wrestling scene featuring Oliver Reed and Alan Bates. Although infamy dogged him with The Devils, he enjoyed considerable commercial success with The Boyfriend and his extravagant take on The Who's Tommy. Furiously creative to the end, Russell showed himself determined to pursue his original ideas, sometimes regardless of the personal cost.



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Thursday 26th January

Factual; Archaeology

Saxon Hoard: A Golden Discovery
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm

Historian Dan Snow uncovers the secrets of one of Britain's most significant discoveries - the Staffordshire Hoard. Found by an amateur metal detecting enthusiast in 2009, the cache of 3,500 items offers an array of new clues into the Dark Ages, and the presenter pieces together the lives of the people who lived in these kingdoms.




Arts, Culture and the Media; Drama documentary

We'll Take Manhattan
BBC4, 9:00-10:30pm

We’ll Take Manhattan explores the explosive love affair between Sixties supermodel, Jean Shrimpton, and photographer, David Bailey.

Focusing on a wild and unpredictable 1962 Vogue photo shoot in New York, the drama brings to life the story of two young people falling in love, misbehaving and inadvertently defining the style of the Sixties along the way.

Set predominantly in 1962 but also exploring the story of how Bailey and Shrimpton first met, this one-off drama reveals how a young, visionary photographer refused to conform. He insisted on using the unconventional model Jean Shrimpton on an important photo shoot for British Vogue and, over the course of a freezing week in Manhattan, went against the wishes of fashion editor, Lady Clare Rendlesham, and made startling, original photographs.

We’ll Take Manhattan is the story of that wild week, of Bailey and Jean’s love affair, and of how two young people accidentally changed the world for ever.




Biography; Documentary

David Bailey: Four Beats To The Bar and No Cheating
BBC4, 10:30-11:35pm

From Vogue magazine fashion photographer to filmmaker, painter and sculptor, David Bailey is a cultural icon who has been at the cutting edge of contemporary art for 50 years. A working-class Londoner, he befriended the stars, married his muses and still captures the spirit and elegance of his times with his refreshingly simple approach and razor-sharp eye. Approaching his 73rd year, Bailey is showing no sign of slowing up. In his London studio and his country home in Devon, he continues to create one of the most varied and pertinent collections of any modern artist. Featuring interviews with art critic Martin Harrison, former wife Catherine Deneuve, current wife Catherine Dyer and close friend Jerry Hall, this is a portrait of a private man who bared the soul of the swinging sixties and seventies with his photographs and films. Grounded, honest, open and ferociously creative, Bailey makes art the way Count Basie played jazz - four beats to the bar and no cheating.