*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 30th June
Drama
The Hollow Crown: Richard II
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/4 - Richard II
Beginning in the year 1399, this continuous story of monarchy captures 16 years of dynastic and political power play, as Kings, their families and followers are threatened by rebellion and conflict.
'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.' Henry IV.
The story takes us from the Royal Court at Westminster to battlefields in England and France. Each of these rich films is woven with the finest of Shakespeare’s poetry and are filmed using the architecture and landscape of the period.
King Richard is called upon to settle a dispute between his cousin Henry Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray. Richard calls for a duel, but then halts it just before swords clash. Both men are banished from the realm.
Richard visits John of Gaunt, Bolingbroke’s father, who, in the throes of death, reprimands the King. After seizing Gaunt’s money and lands, Richard leaves for wars against the rebels in Ireland. Bolingbroke returns to claim back his inheritance. Supported by his allies, Northumberland and the Duke of York, Bolingbroke takes Richard prisoner and lays claim to the throne.
Cast: Richard II is played by Ben Whishaw, Bolingbroke by Rory Kinnear, Mowbray by James Purefoy, John of Gaunt by Patrick Stewart, Northumberland by David Morrissey and Duke of York by David Suchet.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
Derek Jacobi on Richard II: Shakespeare Uncovered
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:20am
Shakespeare Uncovered: Derek Jacobi looks at Richard II and returns to a role he played 30 years ago. He helps actors at the Globe with aspects of the play, reveals why it might have cost Shakespeare his life, and shares some of the extraordinary political parallels within the play that still resonate today.
Derek first played Richard II for the BBC in 1978 - now 34 years later Ben Whishaw is starring in a new BBC film of the play. Derek spans those dates and uncovers what is so special about this play. Although written entirely 'in verse', it is nonetheless one of the most resonant and relevant of all of Shakespeare's plays. Its understanding of power and its inevitable tendency to corrupt and distort the truth are continually repeated in current affairs.
Derek visits Shakespeare's Globe and shares his thoughts with actors rehearsing the play - but he also looks at his own performance and those of other actors who have over the last 30 years tried this taxing role. Richard is both a king and a man who knows he is acting the role of a king. It makes him an extraordinary character for any actor to play. But was this play written by the actor William Shakespeare? Derek is one of those who doubt that and he visits the ancestral home of the man he thinks might very well be the true author of 'Shakespeare's' plays.
Richard II is a politically sensitive play, with a monarch having the crown taken from them. Derek goes on to tell of the attempted coup against Queen Elizabeth led by the Earl of Essex, and how that involved Shakespeare's company of actors. The Earl persuaded them to put on the play to encourage his 'plotters' and it could have cost Shakespeare his life.
With contributions from both the director and leading actor - Rupert Goold and Ben Whishaw - and clips from the new film, Derek uncovers the continuing resonance of this extraordinary play.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries
Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings
BBC4, 7:00-8:00pm, 1/3 - Ruling by the Book
Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings and explores the medieval world they reveal. She begins her journey with the first Anglo-Saxon rulers to create a united England, encountering books in the British Library's Royal manuscripts collection which are over a thousand years old and a royal family tree which is five metres long.
Janina finds out about a king who had a reputation for chasing nuns and reads a book created as a wedding gift for a ten-year-old prince. She roams from Westminster Abbey to other ancient English spiritual sites such as Winchester, St Albans and Malmesbury, and sees for herself how animal skins can be transformed into the finest vellum.
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Sunday 1st May
Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment
BBC2, 7:00-8:00pm, 3/4 - The Magical Forest
Secrets of Our Living Planet showcases the incredible ecosystems that make life on Earth possible. Using beautifully shot scenes in the wild, Chris Packham reveals the hidden wonder of the creatures that we share the planet with, and the intricate, clever and bizarre connections between the species, without which life just could not survive.
Discover previously unknown relationships, like why a tiger needs a crab, or why a gecko needs a giraffe. Each week Chris visits one of our planet's most vital and spectacular habitats and dissects it to reveal the secrets of how our living planet works.
In this episode, Chris travels to North America to witness the annual miracle of the temperate forest: the destruction of its ecosystem in winter, followed by it rebuilding itself in spring. Chris marvels at the exquisite timing that is necessary in two particularly wonderful stories - the story of how the Canada lynx depends for its prey on a caterpillar high up in the canopy, and the story of why the giant trees of the north-west are dependent on bears and salmon.
Factual; Documentaries
Timeshift: Between the Lines - Railways in Fiction and Film
BBC4, 7:00-8:00pm
Novelist Andrew Martin presents a documentary examining how the train and the railways came to shape the work of writers and film-makers.
Lovers parting at the station, runaway carriages and secret assignations in confined compartments - railways have long been a staple of romance, mystery and period drama. But at the beginning of the railway age, locomotives were seen as frightening and unnatural. Wordsworth decried the destruction of the countryside, while Dickens wrote about locomotives as murderous brutes, bent on the destruction of mere humans. Hardly surprising, as he had been involved in a horrific railway accident himself.
Martin traces how trains gradually began to be accepted - Holmes and Watson were frequent passengers - until by the time of The Railway Children they were something to be loved, a symbol of innocence and Englishness. He shows how trains made for unforgettable cinema in The 39 Steps and Brief Encounter, and how when the railways fell out of favour after the 1950s, their plight was highlighted in the films of John Betjeman.
Finally, Martin asks whether, in the 21st century, Britain's railways can still stir and inspire artists.
Factual; Documentaries
India's Hospital Train: Lifeline Express
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm
The story of a special train, the Lifeline Express. It is known as the Magic Train. With two state-of-the-art operating theatres, recovery rooms, offices and accommodation, each project requires a team of volunteer doctors, surgeons and nurses to give their services for free. For four weeks, cameras follow the Mandsor project as operations are carried out on poor rural people while the train is standing in a station in the middle of India.
Dashrath is going deaf, Bharat can't walk, and baby Shiva was born with a cleft lip. They cannot reach a hospital and they can't afford the operations. The operations change the lives of both patients and doctors. With compelling, dynamic and moving stories, the Magic Train opens a gateway to another India, where 21st-century medicine meets village India.
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Monday 2nd May
Factual; Documentaries
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 3/3 - The Suburbs
From the start, suburban London has been captured on film. For some it is a gracious retreat while for others an unwelcome exile. This is a confusing world of tidy semis, old villages and sprawling estates, of commuters, hidden lives and conflict - revealed entirely through archive images.
Documentaries
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm
7/7: One Day in London gathers the testimony of more than 50 people directly affected by the London bombings, exploring the long lasting effects as they reflect on their experiences and how their lives have changed.
After the conclusion of the public inquest in 2011, a multitude of previously untold stories emerged of the bravery, difficulties and horror that people experienced on that day in 2005; many of these have been included in this film as well as testimony from people who have never spoken publically before.
This is an ambitious retelling of the story of what happened on that day, with contributions from commuters, emergency service workers, Transport For London staff and families of victims. With enormous compassion for one another, ordinary people tell extraordinary stories of the day when they were thrown together, and their struggle to cope in the wake of the blasts that shook London.
Factual; Crime and Justice; Documentaries
BBC4, 11:00pm-12:00am, 2/3 - The Pursuit of Liberty
Many of the rights and freedoms we take for granted today were forged during the turbulent 17th and 18th centuries, when courageous men used the law to challenge tyranny and the abuse of power. Harry Potter re-lives the struggles and achievements of these extraordinary figures. They include the barrister who risked assassination and eternal damnation to put the king of England on trial for his crimes against the people; the civil rights activist who was banished to Oliver Cromwell's equivalent of Guantanamo Bay; and the pillar of the establishment whose radical judgement rocked the slave trade, triggering its ultimate abolition.
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Many of the rights and freedoms we take for granted today were forged during the turbulent 17th and 18th centuries, when courageous men used the law to challenge tyranny and the abuse of power. Harry Potter re-lives the struggles and achievements of these extraordinary figures. They include the barrister who risked assassination and eternal damnation to put the king of England on trial for his crimes against the people; the civil rights activist who was banished to Oliver Cromwell's equivalent of Guantanamo Bay; and the pillar of the establishment whose radical judgement rocked the slave trade, triggering its ultimate abolition.
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Tuesday 3rd May
Factual; Documentaries
BBC4, 2:30-3:30am
Storyville: documentary which charts the attempts of two people with albinism to follow their dreams in the face of prejudice and fear in Tanzania. Against the backdrop of an escalation in brutal murders of people with albinism, quietly determined 15-year-old Veda still dreams of completing his education. Josephat Torner has dedicated his life to campaigning against the discrimination of his people, confronting communities who may be hiding the murderers. Harry Freeland's film reveals a story of deep-rooted superstition, suffering and incredible strength.
Factual; Families and Relationships; History
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/5
The Taylor family lead a life of leisure in an upper class household, waited on by servants, a chauffeur and a nanny; but the good times are soon brought to an end with the Wall Street Crash.
Living as a working class family, the Meadows start on a high with better pay and working conditions, but are soon forced to resort to desperate measures.
Meanwhile, the Golding family are relieved to be relatively unscathed by the economic downturn and spend the era steadily improving their lot. That is, until Ian Golding is presented with some devastating truths about the 1930s lives his ancestors were forced to lead as Jews living in London's East End.
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Wednesday 4th May
Factual; History; Documentaries
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 5/6 - Reverdy Road
Once he had finished he had constructed a groundbreaking series of maps which recorded the social class and standing of inhabitants. These maps transformed the way Victorians felt about their capital city.
This series takes six archetypal London streets as they are now, discovering how they have fared since Booth's day.
Booth colour coded each street, from yellow for the 'servant keeping classes', down to black for the 'vicious and semi-criminal'. With the aid of maps the series explores why certain streets have been transformed from desperate slums to become some of the most desirable and valuable property in the UK, whilst others have barely changed.
This landmark series features residents past and present, exploring how what happened on the street in the last 125 years continues to shape the lives of those who live there now.
The fifth episode features Reverdy Road, Bermondsey, which has endured as an enclave of working-class respectability. When Booth visited in 1900, he was impressed by the houses, gardens, and by the broad and clean streets.
Older residents recall life on the street during the war, when three houses were bombed, and trips to the hop fields of Kent. They also remember the work of a pioneer of public health, Dr Alfred Salter, who lived in the house on the corner of the street, a house that has been occupied by a doctor since 1880.
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Thursday 5th May
Documentaries
More4, 7:55-9:00pm
Built against a backdrop of massive public opposition and one of the worst recessions in history, this feat of architectural engineering in the heart of the capital will stand at over 1000 feet - the tallest tower in Western Europe.
Love it or hate it, The Shard is destined to become one of London's most dominant landmarks. The film lifts the lid on the challenges and achievements of an enormous engineering project in a densely populated area of London.
The demanding construction schedule required builders to add a new floor every seven days, and has used 100,000 tonnes of concrete, 11,468 glass panels, a spire made of 500 tonnes of steel and the UK's tallest crane.
On completion, this 1016 foot 'vertical town' will include office space, the highest residential apartments in the UK, a five-star hotel, restaurants and public viewing galleries.
Its construction is the dream of property developer Irvine Sellar, a former fashion-store owner, who appointed world-renowned architect Renzo Piano, who's famous for landmark buildings including Paris's Pompidou Centre and the home of the New York Times.
Filmed over four years, The Tallest Tower: Building the Shard provides exclusive behind-the-scenes access to this architectural journey, and the story of one man's desire to leave a lasting mark on the capital.
History; Documentaries
Storyville: Hitler, Stalin and Mr Jones
BBC4, 9:00-10:20pm
A typically forbidding Storyville tackles a typically tough story. The director is George Carey, a giant of factual TV (he helped create Newsnight and Question Time) who is fascinated by his subject here, a Welsh journalist called Gareth Jones.
In the 1930s Jones exposed how Stalin’s Five Year Plans caused millions of deaths in the Ukraine and was murdered by Chinese bandits in 1935. “He trespassed into
a snakepit of intrigue,” observes one contributor, a snakepit the film tries to unravel.
Sport; Slavery; History; Genetics; Documentaries
4Seven, 11:00pm-12:05am
Why is it that all the athletes that lined up for the men's 100m final at the Beijing Olympics could trace their ancestry back to the trans-Atlantic slave trade?
In this landmark documentary, Olympian Michael Johnson embarks on a personal genealogical and scientific journey in a bid to understand if he and other world-class African American and Caribbean athletes are successful as a result of slavery.
Michael Johnson is a four-time Olympic gold medallist and the finest sprint athlete of his generation. In this remarkable authored film he discovers some disturbing truths about the lives of his enslaved ancestors.
From the mass murder of those on the slave ships to the nightmarish breeding programmes of the plantation owners, Johnson confronts this appalling history.
He speaks to leading voices in the world of sport and science to examine the link between the trans-Atlantic slave trade and genetic selection.
He investigates the role slavery may have played in altering the genomes of their descendants. He speaks to experts whose research has led them to conclude this has contributed to the success of African American and Caribbean sprinters.
Is this part of the explanation of why these athletes are likely to dominate the track at London 2012?
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