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 20th October
Art and Literature; Fiction
The Gothic Imagination: Bloody Poetry
BBC Radio 4, 2:30-4:00pm
In Switzerland in 1816, the myth of Frankenstein was created by Mary Shelley. Howard Brenton's 1984 play imagines the lives of those present, among them the poets Byron and Shelley.
By the shore of Lake Geneva, the poet Shelley and his future wife Mary, together with her step-sister Claire, meet the infamous Lord Byron. All are in exile, self-imposed on Shelley's part, more serious for Byron, and find they are natural allies in a world which is threatened by their radical politics and unconventional attitudes to sexual freedom. Brenton's play celebrates the artistic radicalism and the fiery, intellectual anger of these young people, whose ideas threatened to kick over the traces of the society from which they were escaping. But their dreams of a utopian future were to be swallowed up in lives of excess, illness and tragic accidents.
With Oliver Ryan as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Clare Corbett as Mary Shelley, Patrick Kennedy as George, the Lord Byron, Sarah Ovens as Claire Clairmont, and Gareth Pierce as Dr William Polidori.
By coincidence, the play was recorded in the same week that a London auctioneer put on view the copy of Frankenstein that Mary Shelley inscribed for Byron ('To Lord Byron from the author'). The book was recently rediscovered in a private library and is expected to fetch something in the region of £400,000.
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Sunday 21st October
Drama; Classic and Period; Horro and Supernatural
Classic Serial: The Gothic Imagination - Dracula
BBC Radio 4, 3:00-4:00pm, 2/2
Bram Stoker's disturbing vampire tale of horror, in a new version by Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Lucy Westenra is dead, but Professor Van Helsing is determined to find out the true cause of her death, track it down, fight it and defeat it forever.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Andrew Marr's History of the World
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 5/8 - Age of Plunder
In the fifth episode of this landmark series charting the story of human civilisation, Andrew Marr tells the story of Europe's rise from piracy to private enterprise.
The explosion of global capitalism began with Christopher Columbus stumbling across America while searching for China. While Europe tore itself apart in religious wars after the Reformation, the Spanish colonised the New World and brought back 10 trillion dollars' worth of gold and silver.
But it was Dutch and English buccaneer businessmen who invented the real money-maker: limited companies and the stock exchange. They battled hand-to-hand to control the world's sea trade in spices, furs and luxuries like tulips. In the 145 years from 1492 to 1637, European capitalism was born and spread across the globe.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Michael Wood: The Story of India
BBC4, 11:40pm-12:40pm, 1/6
Michael Wood's journey through the history of the subcontinent chronicles the incredible richness and diversity of its peoples, cultures and landscapes, the originality and continuing relevance of its ideas and some of the most momentous and moving events in world history.
Beginning with the first human migrations out of Africa, using DNA and climate science, ancient manuscripts and oral tales, Michael takes us from the tropical backwaters of south India to lost ancient cities in Pakistan and the vibrant landscapes of the Ganges plain. Finally, to Turkmenistan where dramatic archaeological discoveries are casting new light on India's deep past.
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Monday 22nd October
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
The Digital Human
BBC Radio 4, 4:30-5:00pm, 4/7
Aleks Krotoski looks at whether we've all become techno-fundamentalists. Do we know what all our technology is for or more intriguingly what it wants?
Aleks hears from Douglas Rushkoff about how the whole of the world around us has always been programmed by architects, religion, and politics. But it's something we seem to have forgotten about technology itself.
Tom Chatfield discusses how the biases of technology (the things it naturally tends towards or is best at) interplay with human nature to turn much of our interaction with technology into some sort of perverse game.
But some of these biases like the end use of technology only emerge once people start to use it. Kevin Kelly is one of the world's most respected commentators on technology he believes that the biases of all our technology put together start to combine so that it behave very much like an organism. His provocative theories are detailed in his book What does Technology want?
We explore these theories by discussing our biggest technologies; the city and whether the latest innovations aiming to make our city's smarter and more sustainable hint at a better future relationship with the world of technology
Documentaries
Dispatches: Do You Know Your Partner's Past?
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm
Earlier this year Tina Nash's boyfriend was jailed for life after gouging her eyes out.
In this film, with exclusive access to the police, Tina investigates 'Clare's Law', a new controversial pilot scheme in which men and women are warned by the authorities about their partners' history of violence. Tina wants to know if it will make a difference for other victims of domestic abuse. She meets supporters and opponents to find out whether it is an effective way of pre-empting domestic violence or simply an invasion of privacy.
News
Panorama: Gambling Nation
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm
Even in recession-hit Britain, the gambling industry is still making a profit - £5.6 billion last year. With casino-style gambling now available day or night at the touch of a button in our homes and on our phones, Panorama explores its popularity... and reveals a darker side.
Reporter Sophie Raworth hears from those who have found their lives spiralling out of control, and from industry insiders who say that violence and frustration, linked to fast-paced high-stake gambling machines, are increasing in our high street betting shops. Panorama goes undercover in some of Britain's bookies to test those claims
Factual; Documentaries
The Real Rachman - Lord of the Slums
BBC Radio 4, 8:00-9:00pm
History tells us that Peter Rachman was a slum landlord; the evil head of an empire based on vice, violence and extortion. His festering heartland was Notting Hill - long before the rich and famous made it their home.
But can we really trust history?
On the fiftieth anniversary of Rachman's death, Joshua Levine goes in search of the man behind the legend. Looking beyond the tabloid headlines and the scandal of the Profumo affair, he asks whether Rachman deserves such a sordid reputation?
With no films or tapes, and only three photographs of the notorious 50s landlord, rumour and hearsay is all that remains. In an attempt to find the truth, Levine tracks down the key players who can shed light on Rachman's past. Mandy Rice Davis, famous for her role in the Profumo scandal, tells Josh about the generous, intelligent and vulnerable man she fell in love with as a 16 year old fresh to London; controversial modern landlord Nicholas van Hoogstraten shares how landlords like he and Rachman made money out of the slums; and noted psychologist James Thompson analyses the behaviour of Rachman in light of his experiences as a Holocaust survivor.
With access to newly released Home Office documents and old Rachman tenants, Joshua Levine pieces together the puzzle to ask who is the real Peter Rachman?
Factual; Politics; Education
Analysis: School of Hard Facts
BBC Radio 4, 8:30-9:00pm
E.D. Hirsch is a little-known American professor whose radical ideas about what should be taught in schools are set to have a profound effect on English schools. A favoured intellectual of the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, Hirsch advocates a curriculum strongly grounded in facts and knowledge. He also believes that there are certain specific ideas, works of literature and scientific concepts which everyone should know so that they can be active participants in society.
Presenter Fran Abrams interviews Hirsch about his ideas. She considers their likely impact on English schools and speaks to the former English schools minister, Nick Gibb MP, who championed Hirsch's ideas when he was in government. He explains the reasons for bringing Hirsch's ideas across the Atlantic and how they could counteract what he describes as a prevailing left-wing ideology among teachers.
Fran also visits London's Pimlico Academy which is pioneering a "Hirsch-style" curriculum in its new primary school. She talks to the young women leading this experiment: Anneliese Briggs and Daisy Christodoulou.
Daisy was once dubbed "Britain's brightest student" after captaining the successful Warwick University team on "University Challenge". She discusses why she finds Hirsch's ideas so compelling. She also explains why, in her view, he stands in a proud left-wing tradition that champions knowledge as power, a view that contrasts with Nick Gibb's more right-of-centre take on Hirsch's ideas.
Fran also talks to Professor Sir Michael Barber, chief education adviser to Pearson and former policy implementation director to Tony Blair in Downing Street, and to a former leading member of the Government's expert panel on the curriculum, Professor Andrew Pollard.
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Tuesday 23rd October
Factual; Documentaries
Girls Behind Bars: Stacey Dooley in the USA
BBC3, 8:00-9:00pm
Shaved heads, three-minute showers and press-ups at 5.30am. This is what is facing girls entering 'Shock' - the only US prison boot camp for women. Stacey Dooley meets the girls doing 'Shock' and also spends time in a medium-security prison to see what they will be facing if they fail.
Factual; Health and Wellbeing; Life Stories; Documentaries
Golden Oldies
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm
This affectionate insight into being old today sees three Golden Oldies pass on their astute and humorous insights on becoming old and poor, and the stark choices they now face in their twilight years. Full of wisdom, independent spirit and hard-earned perspective, their stories make you ask, 'Could this happen to me?'
Doris is 84, and won't let a living soul (including the film-maker) inside her chaotic Clacton home - for fear that social services will take it away from her.
Feisty Kitty in Exeter is also 84. She shows us her Kate Moss-inspired knicker and bra collection, and dreams of a miracle cure to an illness like most dream of winning the lottery.
And then there's relatively youthful and charismatic Frank from Liverpool, who at 72 has lost his family to emigration. With no-one left, he has lost the will to carry on - but not his intelligence or tragic humour. Self-imprisoned in his own home like a character from a Samuel Beckett play, his neighbours rarely see him. He hasn't had a bath in years - mainly because he doesn't have one. He's reminiscent of an older, helpless Boo Radley from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.
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Wednesday 24th October
Factual; Documentaries
Brazil with Michael Palin
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/4
Michael Palin has travelled the world for the past 25 years, earning him a reputation as the man who's been everywhere. But there’s one big gap in his passport: Brazil. The fifth-largest country on earth with an abundance of resources and a melting pot of peoples, it’s a nation that's risen almost out of nowhere to become a 21st-century superpower, and is next in line to host both the World Cup and Olympic Games. In this four-part series, Palin sets off to discover a country whose time has come.
Michael begins in the north east – where Europeans first settled and grew rich on slave labour. Here, the mix of indigenous people, African slaves, and relatively few Europeans created many of the characteristic elements of Brazilian life: food, dance, music and a multiplicity of religions.
In Sao Luis, European and African religious rituals come together in typically Brazilian celebrations, and Michael heads to the city’s backstreets to find out about a ceremony based on a 200-year-old slave tale.
He visits one of the region's massive beaches – the country’s great public playgrounds – before heading to the monster sand-dunes of the Lencois Maranhenses National Park. In Recife, Michael tours the city’s striking street art and sculptures, and in Olinda, he gets roped onto the dance floor in a country where everybody dances. Journeying inland, he gets a glimpse of the fast-disappearing world of old-style ‘vaqueiro’ cowboys.
In Salvador, Michael has his fortune read by a priest who practises the local religion of Candomble. He tries his hand at African drumming, samples the Bahian cuisine of a legendary local chef, and is introduced to capoeira in one of the city’s shanty towns.
Leaving Salvador, Michael passes sugar-cane plantations on route to a cigar factory, before finishing the first leg of his journey off the coast on a traditional saveiro boat.
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Thursday 25th October
The Town That Caught Tourettes
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm
In October 2011 in the tiny town of Le Roy, New York, a handful of teenage girls from the same high school suddenly developed symptoms that looked like Tourette's syndrome: facial twitching, violent limb gestures and uncontrollable verbal outbursts.
Some doctors believed they were victims of conversion disorder, where real physical symptoms - in this case tics - are triggered not by a physical cause, but by psychological trauma. But within a few months 18 students were sick and the diagnosis became 'mass hysteria'.
As a cry for help, the girls went on national TV and their story caused a global media frenzy.
This remarkable documentary meets the people at the heart of this outbreak, including the girls who have recovered, as well as those who are still suffering.
Factual; Life Stories; Politics; Documentaries
Storyville - American Idol: Reagan
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:50am
Documentary which examines the enigmatic career of screen star and two-term US president Ronald Reagan.
He has been heralded as one of the architects of the modern world and since his death many Americans have been working to cement his legacy. To some he has come to define contemporary conservatism and has increasingly become a standard-bearer for American statecraft. So phenomenal has his legacy become that both Republican and Democratic politicians today continue to invoke his name to win votes.
But some critics argue that the aftershocks of Reaganomics continue to crumble economies the world over and that the hubris of Reagan's foreign policy continues to propel America into a cycle of overseas ventures. To such critics Reagan is an ominous figure who did more harm than good.
But who was Ronald Reagan, and how did he come to shape world politics in the way he did? Featuring in-depth interviews with those who worked with him and knew him best, this film provides a definitive and penetrating look at Reaganism.
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Friday 26th October
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
A Wolf Called Storm: A Natural World Special
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries
Foreign Bodies: A History Of Modern Europe Through Literary Detectives
BBC Radio 4, 1:45-2:00pm, parts 1-5/15 - Omnibus Edition 1/3 - Poirot, Maigret, Martin Beck, Van Der Valk, Boruvka and Barlach
Crime fiction reflects society's tensions. Helped by famous literary detectives including Maigret, Montalbano, Dalgliesh and Wallander, Mark Lawson shows how crimes reflect Europe's times from the world wars of the 20th century to the Eurozone crisis and nationalist tensions of the 21st.
Beginning with the template set by Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Georges Simenon's Jules Maigret. Mark Lawson hears from Val McDermid, Lord Grey Gowrie, Andrea Camilleri, PD James and David Suchet.
We move to a Swiss view of Germany in the novels of Friedrich Dürrenmatt which explore guilt, responsibility and justice after World War II. Contributions come from Ferdinand von Schirach, Simon McBurney, Josie Rourke, Hollywood scriptwriters Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski; and Professor Katharina Hall (aka Mrs Peabody Investigates)
Josef Skvorecký's depiction of Czech history is discussed by translator (and former member of the Plastic People of the Universe) Paul Wilson. After his novel The Cowards was banned by the Communist authorities, Skvorecký began the Lieutenant Boruvka series.
Inspector Van Der Valk brought an image of Holland to '70s viewers of the TV dramatisations starring Barry Foster. Mark Lawson finds out the Dutch view of Nicholas Freeling's cop from best seller Saskia Voort
The Martin Beck crime novels written by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö deliberately traced changes in Swedish society between 1965 and 1975. Their influence is discussed by Jo Nesbø, Henning Mankell, Åsa Larsson, Camilla Lackberg, Jens Lapidus and Gunnar Staalesen.
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