Off-air recordings for week 18-24 May 2013

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 18th May

Factual > Arts, Culture & The Media > Documentaries

Sincerely, F Scott Fitzgerald: A Culture Show Special
BBC2, 8:30-9:00pm


As Baz Lurhmann’s opulent version of The Great Gatsby, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, opens in cinemas, US writer Jay McInerney picks over the life of its author, F Scott Fitzgerald, mostly through a huge cache of his letters.

Jay Gatsby, a fabulously wealthy bootlegger who threw parties at his mansion as he pined for the love of his life, was a largely “reported figure” in the novel. But, says McInerney, Fitzgerald poured much of himself into his flawed hero and cannibalised his own tumultuous marriage to the troubled Zelda. Perhaps most interesting are Fitzgerald’s letters to his daughter Scottie, which sound both hectoring and affectionate.

Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby has just been released in cinemas, with Leonardo DiCaprio as the millionaire playboy of the title. In this documentary, novelist Jay McInerney explores the life and writing of Fitzgerald through the letters he sent to editors, publishers, lovers and friends, revealing the inner thoughts of a man whose real life was never far from the fiction he wrote.


Factual > Science & Nature >Documentaries

Swarm: Nature's Incredible Invasions

BBC4, 7:00-8:00pm, 1/2 - When World's Collide


This documentary reveals the awe-inspiring world of animal swarms, discovering what happens when superswarms invade people's lives and, using the latest camera techniques, going to the heart of the swarm to reveal how the creatures therein view our world.

Real-life footage from camcorders and mobile phones captures the amazing impact they can have. Killer bees mount an attack on an international football match in Costa Rica; in the US the Illinois River boils with leaping silver carp, an alien species that has hijacked the river, smashing into boats and injuring people.

In South Australia a sea of mice raids farms, consuming and destroying in their millions on a scale that defies belief. The largest swarm on Earth erupts from Lake Victoria: trillions of flies blanket villages but the locals have learnt to turn the swarm into a highly nutritious fly burger. In Rome, cameras fly alongside ten million starlings, the largest swarm in Europe. Their mesmeric waves stop many residents in their tracks, but as they roost they smother the city in tons of excrement.

One man has learnt to control the ultimate swarm. He has become their 'queen bee' with startling results, learning to control what most people fear and to understand one of the most incredible forces of nature.


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Sunday 19th May

Factual > History > Pets & Animals > Documentaries

Ice Age Giants
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/3 - Land of the Sabre-Tooth


Professor Alice Roberts journeys 40,000 years back in time on the trail of the great beasts of the Ice Age. Drawing on the latest scientific detective work and a dash of graphic wizardry, Alice brings the Ice Age giants back to life.

The Ice Age odyssey begins in the 'land of the sabre-tooth' - North America, a continent that was half covered by ice that was up to two miles thick. Yet this frozen land also boasts the most impressive cast of Ice Age giants in the world.

High in a cave in the Grand Canyon, Alice discovers the mummified poo of the loveable, grizzly bear-sized Shasta ground sloth. Lying in the sands of Arizona are the shelled remains of a glyptodon, surely the weirdest mammal that ever lived. On the coastal plains of California, Alice encounters the vast Columbian mammoth, an animal far larger than any elephant today.

These leviathans all have one thing in common: they were stalked by the meanest big cat that ever prowled the Earth, armed with seven-inch teeth and hunting in packs - Smilodon fatalis, the sabre-toothed cat


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > Life Stories > Documentaries

The Man Who Shot Beautiful Women

BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm


Documentary telling the gripping and shocking story of photographer Erwin Blumenfeld, who survived two world wars to become one of the world's most highly-paid fashion photographers and a key influence on the development of photography as an art form. Yet after a mysterious death in Rome in 1969 his name is little-known today, the reasons for which lie in his unconventional lifestyle.

The first ever film about his life and work uses exclusive access to Blumenfeld's extensive archive of stunning photographs, fashion films, home-movies and self-portraits to tell of a man obsessed by the pursuit of beautiful women, but also by the endless possibilities of photography itself.

With contributions from leading photographers Rankin, Nick Knight and Solve Sundsbo and 82-year-old supermodel Carmen Dell'Orefice, it uncovers the richly complex story of one of the 20th century's most original photographic artists.



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Monday 20th May

Factual > Science & Nature > Environment

World's Weirdest Weather
4Seven, 1:30-2:30am


Alex explores strange weather associated with fire, from firenadoes to upward lightning, lightning created in volcanic explosions and raging bush fires called firestorms; as well as exploring how lightning storms rage on planets millions of miles from Earth.

Lightning strikes Earth 45 times a second. Britain gets around 300,000 strikes, with between 30 and 60 people being hit.

The programme hears remarkable first-hand accounts from those who have survived lightning strikes, and learns about the strange effects lightning can have on a human body.

Alex travels to Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, the lightning capital of the world, where there are near-constant lightning storms with thousands of strikes every night.

Footage captured by the public on smartphones and digital cameras reveals the many varied forms lightning can take, from St Elmo's fire coursing through the fuselage of a commercial airliner, to ball lightning high in the sky and lightning inside a snow storm.

Alex examines the terrifying spectre of a firenado, a catastrophic combination of a tornado and a wild fire, a swirling pillar of fire that can reach 800 degrees centigrade; as well as firestorms: a wild fire so powerful it creates its own weather, including lightning bolts that set even more fires.

He also investigates fire from within the planet and learns how a deadly combination of weather and volcanic eruptions created a lethal sulphur cloud that left a trail of destruction as it travelled over Europe.

TV weatherman Alex Beresford explores the mysteries behind some of the world's most bizarre weather, hearing compelling eyewitness accounts from those who've experienced these climatic extremes.

Alex uses dynamic demonstrations to explain the science behind some of the most freakish events on earth, revealing how our weather is even more surprising, weirder and more vibrant than we imagine.



Factual > History >Documentaries

The Flying Archaeologist
BBC4, 8:00-8:30pm, 4/4 - The Thames' Secret War

Archaeologist Ben Robinson flies over the Thames to uncover new discoveries about World War 1. A whole network of trenches has been discovered on the Hoo peninsula. Invisible from the ground, they were recently found from aerial images of the area next to the former Chattenden Barracks.


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Tuesday 21st May

Factual > History > Geography > Documentaries

Town with Nicholas Crane
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/4, series 2 - Oban


Make no mistake. This is Coast, just without Neil Oliver and Miranda Krestovnikoff, and not always with sea views. Geographer Nicholas Crane is exploring four of our “forgotten” towns to find out what they can teach us about urban living. He starts in Oban, a bustling ferry port clinging to the western side of Scotland that most people pass by with barely a sideways glance.

They don’t know what they’re missing, judging by Crane’s enthusiasm for the hilltop tower inspired by the Colosseum, for “coasteering” (scrambling over rocks without getting washed away) and for the cattle market that provides “a break from island life… and where the camaraderie matters as much as the cheque book”. The other Towns in the series are Huddersfield, Enniskillen and Saffron Walden.

Geographer and adventurer Nicholas Crane explores four more towns around the UK, looking at the secrets of their survival, the reasons for their enduring appeal and what they reveal about the future of urban living. He begins with the port of Oban in Argyll and Bute, examining the town's surprising role in the Cold War, visiting one of Scotland's oldest whisky distilleries and meeting artist John Lowrie Morrison at his studio.



Factual > Life Stories > Documentaries

Love and Death in City Hall
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm


A heartwarming and heartbreaking tale about how Belfast people experience the biggest things in life - birth, marriage and death. Located largely within the majestic surrounds of the register office of Belfast City Hall.



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Wednesday 22nd May

Factual > Life Stories > Money

Living with Poverty: Mind the Gap
BBC1 (London), 11:05-11:35pm

Only a dozen tube stops separate Mayfair and West Ham, but there is a staggering 21-year drop in life expectancy between these two neighbourhoods. 'Mind the Gap' takes a journey across the London Underground network to examine what life is like at these two extremes through the lives of the locals.


Factual > History > Science & Nature > Science & Technology > Documentaries

Stories from the Dark Earth: Meet the Ancestors Revisited
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, 4/4 - The First Anglo-Saxons

Julian Richards returns to the excavation of two early Anglo-Saxon cemetries to explore the mystery of the Anglo-Saxon invasions that began after the fall of the Roman Empire. In particular, the rich burial of a warrior and his horse offers up fresh clues to some of the very first pioneers.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > Documentaries

Great Artists in Their Own Words

BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/3 - But is it Art? (1976-1993)

Last of a three-part series which unlocks the BBC archives to tell the story of modern art in the words of the artists themselves looks at how radical late 20th-century artists took on centuries of art history and won - from the notorious 'bricks' of Carl Andre to the 'living sculptures' Gilbert and George, from the shockingly explicit photography of Robert Mapplethorpe to the powerful nudes of Lucian Freud and sensational pickled sharks of Damien Hirst.



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Thursday 23rd May

Drama > Biographical > Historical > Factual > History

The Last Days of Anne Boleyn
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

Drama documentary exploring the dramatic downfall and execution of Anne Boleyn in 1536.


Documentaries

The Hunt for Britain's Sex Gangs
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm


In 2010 Telford police allowed cameras to start filming what was to become one of the biggest child sex abuse cases in the UK.

The investigation, Operation Chalice, eventually encompassed over 100 victims, and around 200 suspected perpetrators.

The Hunt for Britain's Sex Gangs follows - with unprecedented access - a live police investigation, showing just how difficult it is to secure justice for victims of sexual abuse, especially when some girls were just 11 when they were first abused.

Gaining the trust of victims - who as a result of the grooming process, don't see themselves as victims - is key to the success of the case, but it takes months for the police to win their trust and keep them on board as they prepare for the harrowing process of going to court.

As the police work with the victims, they begin to understand a vicious cycle of grooming, which starts with flattery and friendship, then moves on to a more overtly sexual relationship, and finally becomes exploitative as the groomers pass the girls around their networks of friends and family for sex.



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Friday 24th May

News > World Affairs

Unreported World - Yemen: Death Row Teenagers
Channel 4, BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm



Reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy and director Daniel Bogado travel to Yemen to reveal the scores of young men locked up in prisons and awaiting execution for crimes they are accused of committing while they were children. And they meet the lawyer who, in a miscarriage of justice, was sentenced to death himself at the age of 16 and who is now on a mission to save others who should never have been given the death penalty.

The Unreported World team accompanies Hafedh Ibrahim as he enters Taiz prison to meet a new young client.  It's the same prison where Hafedh was once held on death row and where he was marched, handcuffed, from the cells to the execution spot and told to lie down on the sand ready to be executed.  Hafedh tells Guru-Murthy how, according to Yemeni law, as a juvenile he should never have faced the death penalty.

His campaigning from inside prison paid off. He describes hearing the phone call coming in to cancel his execution three minutes before he was due to be shot.  Yemen has one of the world's highest rates of gun ownership. In this tribal society boys are given guns and expected to become men. The prisons are full of young prisoners convicted of murder. According to Yemeni law, offenders under 18 cannot be sentenced to death. But most people here don't have documents proving their age so juveniles are often mistaken as adults. That problem is intensified by the fact Yemeni culture has tended to treat boys as adults at the age of 15.

Hafedh is in the prison to meet Abdul Rahman, a boy accused of murder. Abdul hasn't been tried, but has already been in prison for nearly two years.  His sister claims that he killed her husband. Abdul says that he's being framed and in any case, he was 16 when the death took place.  Hafedh has Abdul's birth certificate, which he says should prove that he's telling the truth...



Factual > History >Documentaries

Henry VIII's Enforcer: The Rise of the Thomas Cromwell
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm


Drama > Biographical > Historical > Factual > History
Thomas Cromwell has gone down in history as one of the most corrupt and manipulative ruffians ever to hold power in this country. A commoner turned Chief Minister, his ruthless pursuit of power and money have captured the public’s imagination for centuries, painting a dark portrait of a merciless politician who destroyed people and institutions to please and enrich his king.

But Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch (How God Made The English, A History Of Christianity), reveals another side. He argues that Thomas Cromwell was a principled and pioneering statesman: an idealist and a revolutionary, whose radical evangelism laid the foundations for the modern British state.



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