Off-air recordings for week 24-30 March 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 24 March 2012

Factual; History: Documentaries

How God made The English?
BBC2, 8:20-9:20pm

The second in a three part series in which Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of Church History at Oxford University, explores both what it means to be English and what has shaped English identity through history.


Professor MacCulloch challenges the commonly held assumption that the English have a long and glorious tradition of tolerance. Rather, history shows that until recently the English were among the least tolerant peoples in the world. In a provocative take on English history, he challenges the fashionable wisdom that it is secular forces and the humanistic values of the Enlightenment that have influenced this English trait. Instead he argues that the root of English tolerance lies in its Christian history - although it's been a journey of accident rather than design.



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Sunday 25th March 2012

Factual: Science and Nature; Science and Technology

In Orbit: How Satellites Rule The World
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

They are constantly circling hundreds of miles above our heads, driving our daily lives - yet we barely give satellites a second thought. Satellite engineer Maggie Aderin Pocock wants to change all that. She wants to make us realise and appreciate what these unsung heroes of the modern world have done for us.


Maggie reveals how satellites have revolutionised exploration, communication, location-finding and spying. She discovers how they have transformed not only the way we see our planet but our understanding of the dangers within it, like volcanoes and earthquakes. Plus, she discovers the jaw-dropping power of the technology used by satellites to make our lives run smoothly.



Documentaries

Perspectives: David Suchet - The People I Have Shot
ITV1, 10:15-11:15pm

In this first instalment of the returning Perspectives documentary strand, actor David Suchet, a keen amateur photographer, follows in the footsteps of his grandfather, Fleet Street photographer Jimmy Jarche.


The film takes David on a very personal and immersive journey through the archives to discover more about his grandfather’s work in capturing iconic images and key historical moments during the early part of the 20th Century.

He sets himself an assignment to meet the standards of modern day Fleet Street photojournalism by emulating and in some cases replicating Jarche’s classic photographs, with the aim of getting his pictures into the Sunday Times magazine.

David’s journey takes him around the country, from a South Wales coal mine to 10 Downing Street, and from archives to art galleries. It provides an insight into Britain then and now through the images he uncovers and attempts to capture, shows how skilled photographers have to be in order to get the shot, and the challenges facing them.

Woven into the narrative is David’s story of the relationship with his grandfather, and his own passion for the unique power of photography.

Ultimately David will discover if he is equal to the task of taking photographs that bear comparison with those of his grandfather and that stand up to the ultimate test – publication in the leading newspaper supplement.

After uncovering the depth, range and quality of Jarche’s archive, David also attempts to discover what the experts’ view is of his grandfather’s work and invites their appraisal of its importance and where he sits among the pantheon of acclaimed 20th century photographers.




Factual; Families and relationships; Health and Wellbeing; Documentaries

We Won't Drop The Baby
BBC1, 10:25-11:15pm

Comedian Laurence Clark and his wife Adele both have cerebral palsy. Six years ago when they had a baby boy, Tom, they were criticised by doctors for being irresponsible. Laurence is wheelchair-bound, and Adele is heavily dependent on her crutches. But now Adele is pregnant again. And this time Adele is determined to have a natural birth. It is a brave decision, considering Laurence's cerebral palsy was caused by his own difficult birth, and Adele's CP affects her from the waist down.

For six months we join Laurence, Tom and Adele in an observational film that lays bare the joys and hurdles of disabled parenting.

As if they didn't have enough to deal with - just four weeks after Adele's due date, Laurence is set to appear at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe performing his comedy routine throughout the summer. It will be an exciting and challenging time for the Clarks as they make the journey up north, complete with their newborn baby. Will Laurence be able to balance family life with his passion for comedy?



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Monday 26th March 2012

Factual; Life Stories; Religion and Ethics

Chaplains: Angels of Mersey
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/6

First in the series. At Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Chaplains are helping the family of a baby about to undergo serious open heart surgery. Meanwhile, James the University Chaplain is at the Fresher's fair and finds a novel way of encouraging students into church.





Factual; Documentaries

Tabloid: Sex In Chains
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Documentary which follows the stranger-than-fiction account of a former beauty queen whose single-minded devotion to the man of her dreams became a tabloid sensation. Allegations that Joyce McKinney had kidnapped her estranged lover and held him captive, handcuffed to a bed in a remote cottage, became the stuff of headlines.


Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris, Joyce's crusade for love and personal vindication takes her through a surreal world of gunpoint abduction, manacled Mormons, oddball accomplices, bondage modelling, magic underwear and dreams of celestial unions.



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Tuesday 27th March 2012

Factual; News

The Mormon Candidate
BBC2, 7:00-8:00pm

John Sweeney investigates the beliefs of Mitt Romney, the man most likely to take on Barack Obama later this year, and asks whether America is ready for a Mormon president.


Sweeney travels to Utah to examine the appeal of the world's fastest growing religion. He meets the stars of its expensive ad campaign 'I'm a Mormon', who tell him of their dedication to family and charity. He meets polygamists, followers of an old Mormon tradition the official Church has turned its back on, he talks to missionaries who recruit people around the world just like Mitt Romney in the sixties, finds ex-members who claim they are cut off from their families and accuse Mormonism of being a cult, and he explores the faith with a Mormon apostle.



Factual; Science and Nature; Science and Technology

Horizon: Global Weirding
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

Something weird seems to be happening to our weather - it appears to be getting more extreme.


In the past few years we have shivered through two record-breaking cold winters and parts of the country have experienced intense droughts and torrential floods. It is a pattern that appears to be playing out across the globe. Hurricane chasers are recording bigger storms and in Texas, record-breaking rain has been followed by record-breaking drought.

Horizon follows the scientists who are trying to understand what's been happening to our weather and investigates if these extremes are a taste of whats to come.



Crime; Documentaries

Fraud Squad
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm

From the makers of acclaimed ITV1 hit Strangeways comes this riveting documentary series about an international police investigation to bring down a multi-millionaire fraudster and his gang. Fraud is the new goldmine for organised crime and 3.2 million people in Britain have become victims. The latest scam is to con people into buying shares in fictitious companies. The gangs use bogus websites, glossy brochures and mass market emails to lure their victims in. With exclusive access to The City of London Police, Fraud Squad follows detectives as they investigate one of the biggest share frauds in Europe. Cameras shadow detectives on surveillance operations, dramatic arrests and as they seize the gang’s Ferraris and multi-million pound houses. The hunt for the gangs takes them across the playgrounds of Europe and contains many unexpected twists and turns. Fraud Squad is a thrilling insight into the world of organised crime.




Factual; Life Stories; Reality

The Estate
BBC1, 11:35pm-12:05am

It has twice the national average of people on unemployment benefit, is one of the biggest housing estates in Northern Ireland and is the setting for an ambitious new fly-on-the-wall documentary series from BBC Northern Ireland.


In The Estate, beginning on BBC One Northern Ireland on Monday, January 23 at 10,35pm, cameras went behind closed doors on Coleraine's Ballysally Estate, to follow the lives of some of the residents across 12 months - when money's tight and times are tough.

Series producer and director, Natalie Maynes, explains: "The Estate is an intimate and ambitious series. It does not flinch from difficult issues: poverty, the benefits trap, alcohol addiction, disability, relationships and more, are all tackled frankly across the eight parts. "We wanted to tell the untold stories of ordinary people living in Ballysally in an extraordinarily tough year of cutbacks, unemployment and recession.

"Because we spent a year with families and individuals, The Estate gets under the skin of the place and its residents. It was a privilege to be welcomed into the homes of our contributors; to share their real life dramas; their hopes and fears - in good times and in bad."

"We set out to make a series of films that reflect the lives of people in a particular place. The Estate is a window into a place shared by men, women and children, young and old, who tell it like it is - in their own words."

The first programme spends time with Louise, a single mum of five, who believes it would not pay her to go to work. Never having had a job; she finds it a struggle to survive on state benefits. She is also in trouble with the authorities because of her daughter Kelly-Anne's truancy from school. The fifteen-year-old just can't get up in the mornings...


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Wednesday 28th March 2012

Factual; Documentaries

WikiLeaks: The Secret Life of a Superpower
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/2

In the second of two programmes about American diplomacy and the leaked US embassy cables, Richard Bilton examines what the cables reveal about how America handles its enemies and rivals.



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Thursday 29th March 2012

Entertainment; Factual; Arts, Culture & the Media

Talk at the BBC
BBC4, 11:00pm-12:00am, 2/3

Funny, surreal and extraordinary - extracts from interviews broadcast on the BBC from the 1950s to the 1970s, arguably the golden age of conversation.


Factual; History; Travel; Documentaries

The Man Who Discovered Egypt
BBC4, 3:45-4:45am

Ancient Egypt was vandalised by tomb raiders and treasure hunters until one Victorian adventurer took them on. Most of have never heard of Flinders Petrie, but this maverick underook a scientific survey of the pyramids, discovered the oldest portraits in the world, unearthed Egypt's prehistoric roots - and in the process invented modern field archaeology, giving meaning to a whole civilisation.


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Friday 30th March 2012

News

Panorama: Murdoch's TV Pirates
BBC1, 12:25-1:55am

As Rupert Murdoch faces accusations of law-breaking and corruption at his British tabloid newspapers, Panorama reveals fresh hacking allegations at the heart of News Corporation's pay-TV empire.


The investigation examines the role of former senior police officers in recruiting people to break the law - in order to bring down Murdoch's commercial rival.


Documentaries

China: Triumph and Turmoil
Channel 4, 1:05-2:05am, 3/3

Niall Ferguson asks what China's growing global presence and aggressive nationalism mean to all of us.


China's supercharged economic growth signals a seismic shift in political power from West to East. We are increasingly dependent on China's money to bail out our own fragile economies.

But at what price? How can we protest when China challenges our most deeply held beliefs about democracy and freedom of speech by locking up its citizens? Should we criticise them or just keep quiet for fear of frightening off much needed investment?

When China transforms itself from an assembler of products invented in the West to an innovator in its own right what will be left for us to do? What will it be like to work in a Chinese-dominated world?


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau
BBC4, 2:35-3:35am, 2/3

Britain's art nouveau heritage is excavated as cultural correspondent Stephen Smith unearths the bright, controversial but brief career of Aubrey Beardsley.


On a mission to uncover lesser known stars of Britain's version of this continental fin de siecle style, he explores the stunning work of Mary Watts and the massive influence of department store entrepreneur Arthur Liberty.

In Scotland, he celebrates the innovative art nouveau of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, but looks harder at the extraordinary and influential work of Mackintosh's wife, Margaret MacDonald.




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