Off air recordings for week 23 February - 1 March 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 23rd February

Documentaries

DNA: The Story of Life
More4, 7:55-9:00pm

Documentary marking the 60th anniversary of one of the most significant scientific moments of the 20th century - Francis Crick and Jim Watson's discovery in 1953 of the double-helix structure of DNA, for which they later received the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Although assured of their place in history, the film explores how the pair also faced unfounded rumours of plagiarism.


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Sunday 24th February

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

WHAAM! Roy Lichtenstein at the Tate Modern
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm


In a special programme broadcast on the opening weekend of the Roy Lichtenstein Retrospective at Tate Modern, Alastair Sooke takes us on an exclusive personal tour of the latest blockbuster art exhibition.

Together with fans, critics, artists and those who knew Lichtenstein, Alastair leads an entertaining and provocative discussion about the work and legacy of one of the most celebrated and instantly recognisable artists of the 20th century.
Renowned for his works based on comic strips and advertising imagery, Lichtenstein's chisel-jawed action men and love-lorn women made him the hero of the Pop Art movement.

When the pictures first appeared in the 1960s they caused a sensation - but also outrage and controversy, with many questioning whether his re-workings of other people's images could really be called art. As the exhibition reveals, however, there was more to Lichtenstein than simply the famous comic book images and also on display are many of his less familiar works - nudes, landscapes, sculpture and his own take on the work of modern art masters such as Picasso and Matisse.

Offering an in-depth look at one of the year's most talked about exhibitions, Alastair and guests explore the enduring appeal of Lichtenstein's imagery, debate the controversies around his work and his influence on today's generation of artists and tackle the big question - was Lichtenstein a Pop Art genius and one of the defining image-makers of the 20th century, or a one-trick wonder whose big idea was so powerful he could never let it go?



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Monday 25th February

Current Affairs; News, Documentaries

Dispatches: Britain on Benefits (postponed from 18th February)
Channel 4, 8:00-8:30pm


The Disability Living Allowance helps more than three million people lead useful lives. It pays for transport and carers, meaning that disabled people can work and lead independent lives. But the benefit bill has to be cut, and the government plans to take more than half a million claimants off DLA. What will that mean for those who depend on it? Talking to fellow Paralympians, disabled army veterans and disabled people in work, wheelchair basketball ace Ade Adepitan goes in search of answers, and asks if this hugely ambitious and expensive plan to reassess disabled people has been properly thought through.



News

Panorama: America's Gun Addiction
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm


The Newtown massacre, in which 20 primary schoolchildren died, has been hailed as a turning point on gun control in America. President Obama wants to ban assault weapons, but his opponents say more guns are the answer, not fewer. Panorama meets the teachers learning to use guns to protect their schools.  With many of America's mass killers having mental health issues and easy access to guns, Panorama reveals the national crisis in mental healthcare which has left 3.5 million severely mentally ill Americans receiving no treatment at all.  Reporter Hilary Andersson goes undercover to show how easy it is to buy the type of assault weapon used at Newtown, with no checks. Will Newtown finally change things, or will the mass killings continue?



Crime and Punishment; Documentaries

Her Majesty's Prison - Aylesbury
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/2


The authorities at Aylesbury prison, have to try to manage some of the most dangerous and disruptive young offenders in the country. In this second episode Prison governor Kevin Leggett reveals how his staff are attacked frequently as they try to ensure they keep control and help to rebuild the fractured lives of these young men.  He says: “A lot of them are violent and just bringing them into prison doesn’t switch that off. It’s just the way they’ve been brought up or the way they would choose to adopt when they interact with people. So it can be a very intimidating environment at times. We’ve had a number of staff assaulted in the last couple of weeks.”

The film captures an incident in the prison when  female prison officer is head butted by a prisoner.

Kevin Leggett says”
“That’s been the real change for me. The propensity for prisoners to assault female staff, because it used to be the taboo and you’d expect a prisoner backlash from their peers, if they assaulted a female member of staff - which is something that we’ve not really had to deal with for a long time.”  Officers are permitted to use reasonable force to defend themselves when attacked. Thirty five members of staff were assaulted at Aylesbury in 2012. Sixteen needed hospital treatment.

Prison officer Kevin Smith says: “Some of the staff assaults we’ve had in this establishment are horrendous and you watch them back and you got to say some of them are really lucky to keep their lives.”  One prisoner Emirali Ockay has a reputation for attacking prison officers. He has been so violent and difficult towards staff he has already been moved several times. Now Aylesbury is looking to transfer him.

Prison Service Manager Darren Voss says:
“Young Okcay wants out of the establishment. Problem is he has a little bit of stability and then he has moments where he then gets disruptive and he’s assaulted individuals whether that’s staff or prisoners. He’s assaulted a member of the work’s team so again now, while we’re communicating with other jails, we got to add that onto his record that he’s gone and assaulted another member of staff so it’s going to be difficult to move him.”

Nine prisons were contacted and they all refused to take Okcay.

The film shows how officers also have to deal with prisoners intent on killing themselves. They have to release the noose around the neck of one prisoner after a failed suicide attempt, and restrain him to prevent him from continuing to self-harm...




Documentaries

Storyville: I Will Be Murdered
BBC4, 10:00-11:25pm


This week’s Storyville chronicles an extraordinary story of murder, love and political conspiracy triggered when a video of a murdered Guatemalan lawyer surfaced on Youtube in which he foretold his own death and named the culprits.

In May 2009, Rodrigo Rosenberg, a wealthy, charismatic lawyer, went cycling near his home in Guatemala City and was murdered. In a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world, such killings were not uncommon. But what was extraordinary is that Rodrigo Rosenberg knew, for certain, he was about to be killed.

Rosenberg’s lover had been murdered a few weeks before, driving Rosenberg to investigate a case which, he told friends, he feared would lead to his death. In a video he recorded days before he died, he accused the President of his murder. It became a Youtube sensation, prompting crowds to take to the street demanding the President’s resignation. But the subsequent investigation into Rosenberg’s death would take multiple twists and turns, before reaching a stunning revelation.



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Tuesday 26th February

Factual; History; Documentaries

Chivalry and Betrayal: The One Hundred Years' War
BBC4, 3/3, 3:00-3.55am

Henry V has claimed the crown of France for his heirs, but to secure it the English must conquer all of France. Potent French resistance comes in the most unlikely form - an illiterate, young peasant girl, Joan of Arc. Dr Janina Ramirez explores the longest and bloodiest divorce in history.


Documentaries

Secrets of the Pickpockets
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm, series 2, 1/1


A new crime wave hits London above and below ground. This is the story of the pickpockets and the police squads sent in to track them down.

This time Secrets is at street level in London's West End - to witness how gangs target pub crowds as they spill out onto the streets. The documentary reveals some new tricks of the criminal trade, from the 'Lebanese loop' to 'Scattering', in which a pickpocket disorientates their drunk victim by weaving and bobbing around while talking to them.

As the public changes its spending habits, the programme reveals how the criminals are changing their techniques too - looking at a recent rise in cash point scams. The Secrets team sits on a stake-out with a specialist police unit targeted on catching one organised ATM gang in the act.

Plus, experts on both sides of this extraordinary game of cat and mouse - from the no-nonsense Sergeant of one of the British Transport Police's 'dip squad' with dozens of arrests to his name, to the Chilean pickpockets, who always seem to get away...



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Wednesday 27th February

Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment

Nature's Microworlds
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 6/7 - Australia's Red Centre

In Australia's red centre, Steve Backshall reveals two-metre-tall kangaroos, the world's most venomous snake and a burrowing toad living among the throng of animals. Parched by the sun, scorched by fire and prone to unpredictable floods, the heart of this island continent is as inhospitable as it gets. Poor soils make vegetation tough and indigestible even to Australia's largest herbivore, the red kangaroo. However, it teems with animals found nowhere else on Earth. The key to the success of this extraordinary place is as surprising as the creatures that make it home.


Factual; Life Stories; Documentaries

Child of Our Time
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/2 - Growing Up


In this programme we follow several of our children preparing to become teenagers and see how their parents and grandparents will cope!

Having followed our children from tiny babies through to pre-teen tearaways, viewers will now get to hear them articulate their feelings about life more eloquently. We discover how they have coped with bullying, with having a famous mum or with learning to live with money worries.

The children's bodies and brains are changing, and their interviews are illustrated with not only their lives today but our rich archive, giving us a unique view into the past.

All our families take part in both programmes but this one predominantly features Helena, the only survivor of triplets born extremely prematurely; Parys, whose mum Alison Lapper is a famous artist; forthright Yorkshire girl Rhianna; technology-loving Taliesin; Het, from Wembley in London, who has big ambitions; farm girl Megan; Matthew from Surrey, whose family are preparing for a great change in their lives; Scottish twins Alex and Ivo; and sports-mad William from Settle.

The programme looks at how these children are growing up and brings the stories right up to date, as the children reach their thirteenth birthday. Exploring the last 12-18 months, we re-enter our families' lives at a time of significant change, having recently left the familiarity and safety of junior school and into the new environment of secondary school. How has each child adapted and coped with this enormous transition? We'll also witness some challenging physiological and biological changes, as they become teenagers. From mood swings and bullying, to body image issues, and fitting in.


Factual; History; Documentaries

Richard III: The Unseen Story

More 4, 9:00-10:00pm


Channel 4 Commissioning Editor John Hay has ordered a special follow-up programme for More4, to build on the success of the world exclusive Richard III: The King in the Car Park. The first programme told the story of how Richard III's body came to be found by an alliance of amateur enthusiasts intent upon rehabilitating Richard's reputation and leading archaeologists from the University of Leicester. Richard III: The Unseen Story – made by the same team from Darlow Smithson Productions who won exclusive access to film the investigation – zeros in on the five months of archaeological and scientific detective work that led to this extraordinary result. The programme uses unseen footage and new interviews with the lead scientists to tell the story of the investigation in unprecedented detail, revealing multiple new dimensions to the hunt for England's long-lost king.

John Hay says: “The more detail you get on this story, the more extraordinary it gets, so we wanted to give viewers the chance to appreciate and enjoy the University of Leicester’s amazing scientific detective work in full.”

Airing the same day as the global story broke that the remains of our most infamous King, lost for 500 years, had been discovered, Richard III: The King in the Car Park provided the full inside story of the hunt for Richard III. It proved a hit with 4.9 million viewers (consolidated) and the film was referenced in 60,000 tweets. The discovery of the body and the battery of scientific tests to establish its identity had been carried out in complete secrecy and no footage of them had been seen by anyone but the investigating team until the programme aired...




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


Michael Wood on Beowulf
BBC4, 11:00pm-12:00am


Historian Michael Wood returns to his first great love, the Anglo-Saxon world, to reveal the origins of our literary heritage. Focusing on Beowulf and drawing on other Anglo-Saxon classics, he traces the birth of English poetry back to the Dark Ages.

Travelling across the British Isles from East Anglia to Scotland and with the help of Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney, actor Julian Glover, local historians and enthusiasts, he brings the story and language of this iconic poem to life.



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Thursday 28th February

Documentaries

Nursing the Nation
ITV1, 8:30-9:00pm, 7/7


There are more than 10,000 district nurses across the country, visiting more than 2 million people every year. For many these are the unsung heroes of the NHS. They develop relationships with patients that can last for years on end and as they see them in their own homes, they often become a huge part of their lives and cornerstones of the local community.

Nursing the Nation follows district nurses on their rounds visiting different homes across the country, creating intimate, affectionate portraits of their diverse patients and their inspiring ability to grasp life in the face of adversity.

The final episode in the series sees us in Devon, with District Matron Shiobhan who is determined to help dementia sufferers live happy, fulfilled lives at home. Shiobhan has been nursing for 25 years, specialising in cognitive impairment her job entails looking after 25 patients. She says, “People with dementia are written off, they’re written off so quickly that ‘no, they can’t cope at home, they surely can’t cope at home’.”

We join Shiobhan as she assesses 88 year-old retired nurse Louise who has been in hospital after having a fall at home. Shiobhan must determine if she is able to return home and then put a care plan in place to ensure she can cope independently. Louise has no immediate family to give her the support that she needs so Shiobhan has arranged a team of carers who will help keep her in her own home.

When Shiobhan’s working day is over she returns home to her husband and two sons. “I spend all day caring for people and then I come home and care for some more people! I think my nursing life and home life run hand in hand at this moment in time.”

Meanwhile, in Bath, District Nurse Ren is doing an annual health check on David, a patient she has been visiting for seven years. 20 years ago, whilst on holiday, David was paralysed from the neck down when he broke his neck diving into a swimming pool. Since the accident he needs round the clock assistance from a team of carers but still happily enjoys a drink at the local pub and holds down a day job.

He says, “Before my accident I always enjoyed partying, I was always a very up person, always the pint glass half full as opposed to half empty. Not a lot got me down anyway. What’s the Italian saying? La Dolce Vita, you know, life’s sweet. That’s how I feel.”

Ren leads a team of district nurses who look after 50 patients. She has been nursing for 22 years and says, “I think Dave deals with his disability absolutely fantastically, remarkably well. He’s so adjusted to dealing with it and it’s really inspiring and amazing, the things he is able to do, despite being paralysed from the neck down, the life that he is able to lead.”



Factual; Life Stories; Documentaries

Child of Our Time
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/2


Half the couples in this ongoing series have divorced or separated since it began in 2000. Some of the children have lost a parent. So there are desperately sad stories in this edition, which documents how the families have changed over the past 13 years. Many of the youngsters have coped well with upheaval and trauma, but others haven’t.

Watching a tearful youngster trying to find the words to describe the hurt they feel is always painful. But mostly it’s the parents who do the talking and, though they’re generally proud of their kids, many have a twinge of sadness at how quickly they’ve grown up.

Professor Robert Winston looks at how the youngsters have coped with changes in their families, as well as finding out about the hopes and expectations their parents hold for them. The presenter asks whether the 12-year study of the children's lives has been able to identify key moments that have shaped their personalities, as well as pondering how insightful the archive will be in terms of where they want to go next.



Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment

Winterwatch: 1963 - The Big Freeze
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:20am

Chris Packham introduces a classic documentary from the BBC's archive, which takes a look at the worst winter of the 20th century in 1963. He also explores what we now know about how this big freeze affected Britain's wildlife, and how it would cope if we experienced another equally bad winter.


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Friday 1st March

Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Factual > Travel

Wild Arabia
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/3 - The Jewel of Arabia

In a remote corner of southern Arabia one mountain range holds a remarkable secret. Swept by the annual Indian Ocean monsoon, the Dhofar mountains become a magical lost world of waterfalls and cloud forests filled with chameleons and honey-badgers. Off-shore rare whales have not bred with any others for over 60 thousand years and green sea turtles come ashore in their thousands, shadowed by egg-stealing foxes. Heat-seeking cameras reveal, for the first time ever, striped hyenas doing battle with Arabian wolves. While local researchers come face to face with the incredibly rare Arabian leopard.


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Off-air recordings for week 16-22 February 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 16th

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Swinging into The Blitz: A Culture Show Special
BBC2, 6:00-7:00pm


When a handful of musical immigrants from the Caribbean islands came to Britain in the 1920s and 30s, it was the beginning of both musical and political change. Leslie Thompson, an innovative musician and trumpeter, and Ken 'Snakehips' Johnson, a brilliant dancer and charismatic band leader, pooled their talents to start the first black British swing band.

Clemency Burton-Hill reveals the untold story of the black British swing musicians of the 1930s, whose meteoric rise to fame on London's high society dance floors was cut short by unexpected tragedy at the height of the Blitz.


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Sunday 17th

Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries

Wonders of Life
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 4/5 - Size Matters


In this episode, Brian travels around Australia to explore the physics of the size of life. Beginning with the largest organisms on our planet, a forest of giant eucalyptus trees, he then takes to the seas to get up-close with an ocean giant - the great white shark. From the safety of a steel cage Brian explains how the distinctive streamlined contours of the great white have been shaped by the physics of water.

Back on land, Brian heads out to the dry dusty outback. Here he tracks the largest living marsupial, the red kangaroo, to see how giants on land adapt to gravity. This all pervasive force influences the way in which living things move and the upper limit on how large they become.

Through the myriad species of insects in Queensland's rainforests, Brian begins his journey into the world of the small. At smaller scales, the effects of gravity are negligible and it is another force - the electrostatic force - that is dominant. This explains how flies and other insects can appear to defy gravity, using the traction of the electrostatic force to scale vertical windows.

But as life gets smaller, the very nature of the world appears to change as Brian explains with the aid of the tiny trichogramma wasp. This is one of the smallest multicellular life forms on Earth. For them, the atmosphere is a highly viscose environment - in a similar way to how we experience liquid - and so the trichogramma has to 'swim' through the air.

Even smaller still, are the thrombolites of Lake Clifton, near Perth. These mysterious growths are made up of colonies of bacteria, the smallest free-living life forms on Earth. Here, Brian finds that the size of life has a lower limit that is governed by the size of atoms and fundamental particles, which in turn are subject to the laws of physics.

The size you are not only dictates which forces of nature affect your life, it also influences your 'speed of life'. The tiny southern bent wing bat of South Australia loses heat so fast that they struggle to find enough food to stay alive. But as life gets larger, the pace of life - or metabolism - slows and this has profound consequences on life expectancy.

Brian explores this idea upon the tropical Christmas Island. This is a land of crabs of all different shapes and sizes. The largest - and most distinctive - are the giant robber crabs whose legs can span a metre. Not only are they the largest land invertebrate, they outlive their smaller cousins, some reaching well over 80 years of age. So the physics of size shapes life in many ways, not least the amount of years you get to enjoy it.


Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Perspectives: Looking for Lowry

ITV1, 11:15pm-12:15am


I can imagine art critics across the land gasping for oxygen throughout Perspectives, the first of ITV1’s new soft-centred arts strand, a sort-of replacement for The South Bank Show.

Why? Because it’s a documentary about LS Lowry, the British painter born in Manchester in 1887 whose huge popularity never translated into critical acclaim; it’s presented by an actor (Ian McKellen) and one of the contributors is Noel Gallagher. Yes, that Noel Gallagher, from Oasis. Can I hear Brian Sewell combusting?  For anyone who loves Lowry, tonight’s Perspectives provides a neat, simple, er, perspective, on his life, illustrated with a lot of his work, including some rather kinky and hitherto largely unseen drawings and sketches of constricted women.

There are contributions from Lowry’s friends and a mealy-mouthed offering from a Tate Gallery boss about why none of the 23 Lowrys held in its collections is currently on display. His work is a bit too “sentimental”, apparently.  Ian McKellen presents an exploration of LS Lowry, whose paintings of northern urban life are particularly loved for his trademark `matchstick men' figures. He discovers works that have never been exhibited and examines them for possible clues to Lowry's personality. The documentary also features Noel Gallagher, who claims the artist does not receive the recognition he deserves, while Jeffrey Archer explains how he came to be a Lowry collector.



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Monday 18th

News, Current Affairs

Dispatches: Britain on Benefits
Channel 4, 8:00-8:30pm


The Disability Living Allowance helps more than three million people lead useful lives. It pays for transport and carers, meaning that disabled people can work and lead independent lives.  But the benefit bill has to be cut, and the government plans to take more than half a million claimants off DLA. What will that mean for those who depend on it?  Talking to fellow Paralympians, disabled army veterans and disabled people in work, wheelchair basketball ace Ade Adepitan goes in search of answers, and asks if this hugely ambitious and expensive plan to reassess disabled people has been properly thought through.



Law and Order; Crime and Punishment; Documentaries

Her Majesty's Prison - Aylesbury
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/2


Aylesbury Prison in Buckinghamshire, home to some of the most dangerous young criminals in Britain, has allowed an exclusive insight into life for prisoners and staff for a new documentary series on ITV- Her Majesty’s Prison: Aylesbury.  Murderers, rapists, gangsters and paedophiles are serving time here. So serious are some of their offences, that one in five is serving life or an indeterminate sentence to protect the public. What’s frightening is that the oldest prisoners are just 21.

Officers engage in a daily battle of wits, to ensure they keep control. They must also try to help rebuild the fractured lives of these young men.  Programme makers, Wild Pictures, who have won acclaim for powerful documentaries on Strangeways, Holloway and Wormwood Scrubs prisons, were given extraordinary access to film over four months, interviewing hundreds of prisoners and officers for the two part documentary.



Storyville: Google and the World Brain
BBC4, 10:00-11:30pm


Storyville: Documentary which tells the story of the most ambitious project ever conceived on the internet and the people who tried to stop it. In 1937 HG Wells predicted the creation of the 'world brain', a giant global library that contained all human knowledge which would lead to a new form of higher intelligence. 70 years later the realisation of that dream was under way, as Google scanned millions of books for its Google Books website. However, over half those books were still in copyright and authors across the world launched a campaign to stop them, climaxing in a New York courtroom in 2011.  This is a film about the dreams, dilemmas and dangers of the internet, set in spectacular locations in China, USA, Europe and Latin America.



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Tuesday 19th

factual; History; Documentaries

Britain on Film
BBC4, 2:30-3:00, End of Empire

This episode focuses on films examining the changing shape of the British Empire. At a time when many of its former colonies were achieving independence, Look at Life sent its film crews as far afield as Aden, Malaysia and Ascension Island to record the efforts made by Britain to manage the transition from imperial rule to the leadership of an emerging Commonwealth.


Factual; Documentaries

Storyville: The Pirate Bay
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm

Storyville: Documentary telling the story of The Pirate Bay, the world's largest file sharing site which facilitates downloading of copyrighted material. The film follows the three Swedish founders of The Pirate Bay through their trial after they are taken to court by Hollywood and the entertainment industry, accused of breaking copyright law. Seeing themselves as technicians whose aim is to run the world's largest web platform, in scenes bordering on the absurdly comedic they claim that their actions are about freedom and not money. The closer the film gets to them, it becomes increasingly clear that they are rather unworldly nerds, whose social skills and ability to comprehend the analogue world, and each other, are somewhat limited.


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Wednesday 20th

Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment; Documentaries

Nature's Microworlds
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 5/7 - The Deep Sea

Steve Backshall takes us to a place few have ever visited - the deep sea. 99 per cent of the space on Earth inhabited by life is under the ocean and almost 90 per cent of this is deeper than a kilometre, a place of perpetual darkness and crushing pressure. Far from being lifeless, the vast inner space of our planet contains an extraordinary array of beautiful and bizarre creatures, from 40m-long jellyfish to grotesque angler fish and vampire squid. Our journey from the sunlit surface waters to the deepest reaches of the abyss reveals how life persists in such a hostile world.


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Thursday 21st

Factual; History; Documentaries

Chivalry and Betrayal: The Hundred Years War
BBC4, 10:30-11:30pm, 2/3 - Breaking the Bonds 1360-1415

England, wracked by plague and revolt, loses the upper hand until Henry V, determined to prove his right to be king, turns the tide at the battle of Agincourt.



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Off-air recordings for week 9-16 February 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 9th February

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Magazines and Reviews

Ice Age Art: A Culture Show Special

BBC2, 5:30-6:30pm

Andrew Graham-Dixon travels to Northern Spain to visit some of the world's oldest works of art, hundreds of meters beneath the surface of the earth. In limestone caves he is astonished to find a series of vivid paintings, some of which are over 33,000 years old, which appear to link modern man to our ice age ancestors.

Back in London, the British Museum is staging one of its most ambitious exhibitions yet, Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind. Andrew gets a behind-the-scenes preview of the extraordinary highlights and discovers that the world's first commissioned artists were producing highly sophisticated work tens of thousands of years before he previously imagined.  The programme includes contributions from the British Museum's director, Neil MacGregor, and artist Antony Gormley.

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Sunday 10th February

Factual; Science and Nature; 

Wonders of Life

BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/5 - Endless Forms Most Beautiful

In this episode Brian Cox visits South East Asia's 'Ring of Fire'. In the world's most volcanic region he explores the thin line that separates the living from the dead and poses that most enduring of questions: what is life? The traditional answer is one that invokes the supernatural, as seen at the annual Day of the Dead celebrations in the Philippine highlands. Brian sets out to offer an alternative answer: one bound up in the flow of energy through the universe.

On the edge of Taal Volcano lake, Brian demonstrates how the first spark of life may have arisen. Here, heat energy from the inner Earth forces its way to the surface and changes its chemistry, just as it did in our planet's infancy. It is now believed that these chemical changes set up a source of energy from which life first emerged.

Today, virtually all derives its energy from the Sun. But there's a paradox to this as according to the laws of physics energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So life doesn't 'use' energy up. It can't remove it from the universe. So how does energy enable living things to live?

Brian reveals life to be a conduit through which energy in the universe passes, just one part in a process that governs the lifecycle of the entire Universe. By diverting energy in the cosmos living things are able to grow and thrive.

But whilst the flow of energy can explain living things, it can't explain how life has endured for more than three billion years. So Brian meets an animal in the Borneo rainforest that holds the key to how life persists - the orangutan. Ninety seven per cent of our DNA is shared with orangutans. That shared heritage reveals a profound conclusion: that DNA is a record of the evolution of life on Earth, one that connects us to everything alive today and that has ever lived.

So life isn't really a thing. It's a chemical process, a way of tapping into the energy flowing through the Universe and transmitting it from generation to generation through the elegant chemistry of DNA. Far from demanding a mystical explanation, the emergence of life might be an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics.

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Monday 11th February

News

Dispatches: How Safe is Your Child's Nursery?

Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm

As the government unveils plans to increase the number of children each nursery staff member is allowed to look after, Dispatches investigates whether parents can really trust their child's nursery.  The programme goes undercover to expose the shortcoming that means some prospective parents are not able to see a comprehensive history of previous complaints, and hears from parents badly let down by those who are supposed to care for their children.

Factual; Science and Nature

Penguins: Spy in the Huddle

BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3

Penguins as they have never been seen before. From the freezing Antarctic to the scorching tropics, 50 spy cameras capture unique footage of three extraordinary species.  Emperor penguins cross a treacherous frozen sea to reach their breeding grounds, and on the way one becomes lost in a blizzard. Once there, the females flipper flight over the males and those that succeed 'waddle walk' with their partners. They must lay their eggs without touching the ice, but it is the males that face the greatest challenge - overwintering alone in the coldest place on earth.

Rockhoppers brave the world's stormiest seas, only to come ashore and face a daunting assault up a 300-foot cliff, hopping most of the way up. Having laid their eggs, these plucky birds face airborne attacks from skuas and vultures.  Humboldts are a strange tropical penguin that has rarely been filmed. To reach their desert nests they negotiate 20,000 predatory sea lions, dodge vampire bats and battle half a million sharp-beaked seabirds. The hard work for all the penguins finally pays off when their tiny, vulnerable chicks begin to hatch. Among the spy cameras capturing unique behaviour is a technological first - robotic penguins with cameras for eyes.

Factual; Documentaries

Storyville: Expedition to the End of the World

BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm

Storyville: Documentary which follows the journey of a group of scientists and artists as they venture by ship into one of the last uncharted territories on earth. Now global warming is melting the ice, an unexplored fjord system in north-east Greenland has opened for a few weeks each year. The explorers set sail on an Arctic journey where they encounter a polar bear, Stone Age playgrounds and an entirely new species. Awe, curiosity and humour bond the scientists and artists as they contemplate a landscape untouched by humanity. As the boat slips further away civilisation, the crew have a disturbing encounter which underlines the destructive impact of mankind.  Epic, breath-taking and awe-inspiring, this documentary depicts both the wild beauty of the Earth and man's own transitory role in evolution. 

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Tuesday 12th February

Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and the Environment

Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures

BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, 3/3 - Freeze in Time

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? Professor Fortey travels across the globe to find the survivors of the most dramatic of these obstacles - the mass extinction events.

In episode three, Fortey looks at the Ice Age. 2.8 million years ago - triggered by slight changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun and shifts in its ocean currents - the world began to cool. Within a few thousand years much of the planet was shrouded in a dense cloak of ice that would come and go until only 10,000 years ago. We call this age of ice - the Pleistocene Age - and it transformed the hierarchy of nature. This is the story of how a few specialist species that evolved to live in the biting cold survived into the present day. 

Documentaries

The Hunt for Britain's Metal Thieves

BBC1, 10:35-11:25pm

In the past three years more than £13 million worth of metal has been stolen from Britain’s railway network. Cables, wiring and the rails themselves are removed by thieves who take advantage of the relative accessibility of the metal and the high prices it will fetch. (Thanks to Chinese demand, prices have risen 500 per cent in a decade.) Cameras follow British Transport Police in Yorkshire as they try to catch the criminals. We also see the effects of other thefts — from manhole covers to war memorials and churches.

Documentary showing the British Transport Police's fight back against a new crime wave - metal theft - which sees gangs across Britain tearing apart the country's infrastructure, stripping metal from railways, power stations, churches and war memorials. The film reveals the consequences of these actions - from the risk of electrocution to thieves to the emotional distress experienced by victims.

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln: A Culture Show Special

BBC2, 11:2pm-12:20am 

Abraham Lincoln is one of the most iconic figures in American history. Justin Webb, the BBC's former North American editor, explores the enduring myth of the president who helped to shape the American Dream. Featuring interviews with Steven Spielberg, Daniel Day-Lewis and Alastair Campbell, Justin examines the hold Lincoln continues to have and why people still believe America is the Land of the Free.

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Wednesday 13th February

Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment

Nature's Microworlds

BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 4/7 - Yellowstone

In the spectacular Yellowstone where wolves, bears, coyotes, bison and elk roam vast grasslands, wetlands and forests, Steve Backshall looks for the answer to a puzzle. Wolves and beavers have little to do with each other so why, when wolves were returned after an absence of 70 years, did the beaver population increase? The revelation is as magical as it is surprising.

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

The Culture Show

BBC2, 10:00-10:30pm

Andrew Graham-Dixon explores the work of 17th century Spanish baroque painter Bartholome Esteban Murillo, as an exhibiton focusing on the profound influence of his close friend and patron Justino de Neve opens at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.  Alan Yentob meets Jonathan Miller as the veteran opera and theatre director returns to British theatre after a six year break to stage Northern Broadsides production of Rutherford and Son - Githa Sowerby's powerful 1912 play about class, capitalism and gender. In a break from rehearsals, Miller reveals what it took to lure him out of retirement.

Internationally renowned architect Peter Zumthor has just been awarded Britain's highest architectural accolade, the Royal Gold Medal. Tom Dyckhoff travels to Switzerland to talk to this master of understatement about his quiet approach to design. Mark Kermode meets Bill Murray to talk about his latest film 'Hyde Park on Hudson'.  All this and a performance from electronic music duo and BBC Sound of 2013, shortlisted artists AlunaGeorge recorded at the Hayward Gallery ahead of the opening of 'Light Show' which features the art of James Turrell and Dan Flavin amongst others.

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Thursday 14th February

History; Documentaries

Chivalry and Betrayal: The Hundred Years War

BBC4, 11:00pm-12:00am, 1-3

One hundred years is, of course, an approximation, as this war between England and France, longest of the Middle Ages, lasted from 1337 to 1453, by which time the people who’d begun the hostilities were long dead. It gave England such victories as Agincourt, made the reputations of Edward III and Henry V – and would give Shakespeare plenty of material. It also provided France with a national heroine in Joan of Arc.

But even now the jury is out as to its causes and outcome. Unstuffy historian Janina Ramirez (presenter of BBC4’s recent Illuminations) guides us through the saga of kings, knights, bloody battles and cultural triumphs in the first of three ravishingly shot films. 

Dr Janina Ramirez explores the lengthy conflict between England and France in the 14th and 15th centuries. She begins by examining how Edward III led a crushing English victory at the Battle of Crecy in 1346, focusing on the role played by low-born archers, before moving on to the Black Prince's campaign of terror.

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Off-air recordings for week 2-8 February 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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Sunday 3rd

Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries

Wonders of Life
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/5 - Expanding Universe


Amidst the rich natural history of the United States, Professor Brian Cox encounters the astonishing creatures that reveal how the senses evolved.  Every animal on Earth experiences the world in a different way, using a unique suite of senses to detect its physical environment. Tracing the evolution of these mechanisms is a story that takes us through life's journey - from single-celled organisms to more complex, sentient beings. Brian finds that over the course of 3.8 billion years, the senses have driven life in new directions and may, ultimately, have led to our own curiosity and intelligence.

Brian begins deep in the caves of Kentucky, where, devoid of light, he must orientate by sense of touch and sound alone. Yet even in this limited environment he encounters a creature that is perfectly able to find its way around. This is the paramecium, a microscopic single-celled organism.  Despite their apparent simplicity, paramecia display a clear sense of touch, changing direction whenever they bump into something. Brian finds that the electrochemical process through which they 'feel' the world, underlies practically all senses in all living things.

Brian next explores the sense of taste in the muddy waters of the Mississippi Delta. With a metre long catfish in his arms, Brian explains how its entire body is covered in taste buds. These behave like one giant tongue, allowing the catfish to build up a three-dimensional map of its otherwise murky surroundings.  A scuba-dive off the coast of California brings Brian face to face with the strange yet remarkable mantis shrimp. These inhabitants of the ocean floor see the world through eyes made of 10,000 lenses, each with twice as many visual pigments as any other animal on Earth.

But it's in the eyes of the octopus that Brian finds a link between the ability to process sensory data and the emergence of intelligence. This tantalising discovery may be evidence that humans evolved large brains in order to process the vast amounts of information gathered through our sense of vision.  For Brian this raises an extraordinary prospect - that ultimately it was our senses that allowed us to gaze up at the vast expanse of the universe and begin to understand its origins.



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Monday 4th

News

Panorama: The Great Abortion Divide
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm

Abortion is more controversial than ever, with pro-life activists challenging pregnant women as they try to enter clinics. Doctors in most of the UK are signing off terminations on questionable mental health grounds, while in Northern Ireland women and doctors risk life in prison over abortion. So is our legislation hopelessly outdated? Victoria Derbyshire investigates the great abortion divide and asks if it is time to change the law.


Factual; History; Documentaries

Richard III: The King in the Car Park
Channel 4, 9:00-10:35pm


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Tuesday 5th

Factual; History; Documentaries

Britain on Film
BBC4, 2:30-3:00am, Animal Magic


In 1959, Britain's biggest cinema company, the Rank Organisation, decided to replace its newsreels with a series of short, quirky, topical documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. For the next ten years, Look at Life chronicled - on high-grade 35mm colour film - the changing face of British society, industry and culture. Britain on Film draws upon the 500 films in this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into what became a pivotal decade. This episode examines Britain's ambiguous relationships with animals. Look at Life's coverage - which ranges from the fur trade, fox hunting and animal-based entertainments in circuses to our passion for pets - shows just how far attitudes to other species have shifted since the 1960s.


Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment;

Survivor's Indestructible Creatures

BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, 2/3 - Fugitives from the Fire


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? Professor Fortey travels across the globe to find the survivors of the most dramatic of these obstacles - the mass extinction events.  In episode two, Fortey focuses on the 'KT boundary'. 65 million years ago, a 10 km diameter asteroid collided with the Earth and saw the end of the long reign of the dinosaurs. He investigates the lucky breaks and evolutionary adaptations that allowed some species to survive the disastrous end of the Cretaceous Age when these giants did not.



Documentaries

Out of Jail and On The Streets
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm

With unprecedented access, this documentary uncovers the hidden world of public protection. Through the personal stories of probation officers, it explores how offenders are monitored, controlled and rehabilitated in everyday life, and how the public are protected from them. This is the story of our protectors, the extraordinary professionals in the probation service who work with some of society's most troubled, damaged and dangerous people. They keep tabs on murderers and paedophiles, robbers and rapists, burglars and domestic abusers. But these offenders are not behind bars; they are out and about, living free among us. So how are they controlled, and how are we kept safe?


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Wednesday 6th

Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment;

Africa
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 6/6 - The Future


Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment;

Nature's Microworlds
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 3/7 - The Namib Desert

Steve Backshall explores the oldest desert in the world, the Namib, a coastal area in southern Africa where temperatures often reach 60 degrees. He tracks down the animals that live there and shows the tactics they employ to combat the heat, before revealing the secret that allows life to survive in this harsh environment.


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Thursday 7th

News

Tonight: How To Save a Life
ITV1, 7:30-8:00pm

Every year in the UK, up to 140,000 people die in situations where basic first aid might have saved them. Fiona Foster meets former Bolton Wanderers midfielder Fabrice Muamba, who suffered a cardiac arrest on the pitch last year and is now campaigning for first aid to be taught in schools. The programme also puts the medical skills of three members of the public to the test by reconstructing the aftermath of a car crash.


Documentaries

Nursing the Nation
ITV1, 8:30-9:00pm, 6/7

A new series which looks at the work of the District Nurses who travel around the country caring for their patients in their own homes many of whom are elderly.


Documentaries

Brain Doctors
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:20am, 1/3 - Emergency


High risk, extremely skilled and breathtakingly complex, Brain Doctors features surgeons working at the very frontiers of their medical expertise and knowledge. Landmark Films has had remarkable access over nine months to the neurosurgeons at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital – sharing the daily highs and lows – and to their patients whose lives depend on their skill.

Cameras follow both paediatric and adult surgeons as they carry out high risk operations on the most complex, delicate and important organ, removing brain tumours, correcting brain abnormalities and saving the lives of trauma victims.  Some of the patients are what Paediatric Neurosurgeon Jay Jayamohan calls 'frequent flyers' – children with complex conditions who require a lifetime of surgery. The films highlight the strong bonds of trust and commitment that are forged between families and their surgeons.

Patients often arrive in the Neurosurgery Department shell-shocked: a routine visit to the optician or GP has triggered a process which ends with major brain surgery to remove a life threatening tumour.  Tracey, a midwife and mum to two sons, lies in a coma with massive head injuries suffered in a car crash. Husband John escaped relatively unscathed and sits constantly by her bed, willing her to open her eyes.  Martin was struck down by a mysterious virus which has rendered him unconscious and unable to breathe for himself. Every day, his wife Lisa, checks for signs Martin is coming round. For doctors and patients, the NICU is a physically and mentally gruelling place to be.



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Off-air recordings for week 26 January - 1 February 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 26th January

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

The Treasure's of Ancient Rome
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/3 - Warts 'n' All

Alastair Sooke traces how the Romans during the Republic went from being art thieves and copycats to pioneering a new artistic style - warts 'n' all realism. Roman portraits reveal what the great names from history, men like Julius Caesar and Cicero, actually looked like. Modern-day artists demonstrate the ingenious techniques used to create these true to life masterpieces in marble, bronze and paint.


We can step back into the Roman world thanks to their invention of the documentary-style marble relief and to a volcano called Vesuvius. Sooke explores the remarkable artistic legacy of Pompeii before showing how Rome's first emperor, Augustus, used the power of art to help forge an empire.


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Sunday 27th

Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries

Wonders of Life
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/5 - What is Life?

Professor Brian Cox embarks upon an exploration of how a few fundamental laws gave birth to the most complex, diverse and unique feature of our universe - life. In this episode, he journeys to the volcanic landscapes of South-East Asia, seeking to understand how life first began and how that spark has endured to this day.

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Monday 28th

News

Panorama: The Great Disability Scam
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm

Only half of all people with a disability are in work. Panorama investigates if one of the government's most ambitious welfare reforms, costing billions of pounds, can solve the problem of disability unemployment. Reporter Sam Poling reveals the private companies who are getting rich from the new reforms despite only being able to get a small fraction of disabled people back to work, and speaks to the charities who feel the most vulnerable in our society are being failed.


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Tuesday 29th

Factual; History; Documentaries

Britain on Film
BBC4, 2:30-3:00am, 7/10 - This Sceptred Isle

In 1959, Britain's biggest cinema company, the Rank Organisation, decided to replace its newsreels with a series of short, quirky, topical documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. For the next ten years, Look at Life chronicled - on high-grade 35mm colour film - the changing face of British society, industry and culture. Britain on Film draws upon the 500 films in this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into what became a pivotal decade.


This episode examines Look at Life's quirky films that documented unusual or eccentric British customs, rituals and traditions. In an era where many Britons embraced change as never before, these revealing and highly entertaining films show that people were determined to preserve the idiosyncratic aspects of our national life.


Factual; Science and Nature

Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, 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.


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Thursday 31st

Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment


Nature's Microworlds
BBC4, 1:45-2:45am, 2/7 - The Great Barrier Reef

Steve Backshall goes beneath the surface of Australia's Great Barrier Reef to discover the crucial conditions that allowed a tiny coral building block to create the largest living structure on the planet. He unravels the complex mosaic of reef environments to reveal the key to the microworld's success, but discovers that life on this coast is not always easy. Nutrient-poor water, enormous storms and rising seas should make it impossible for such a vibrant ecosystem to exist here, so what allows the Great Barrier Reef to not only survive but flourish as the largest reef on Earth?



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Off-air recordings for week 19-25 January 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 19th January

Science and Nature; Documentaries

Is Our Weather Getting Worse?
More4, 10:00-11:05pm

In Britain we love to moan about the weather. And over the past decade we have experienced some extraordinary weather conditions, with 2012 no exception. It has led many people to wonder if our weather really is getting worse. The year started with storms and gale-force winds tearing across much of the UK, before our driest spring in a century left 35 million people in the UK suffering from drought.

In Aberdeen in March, temperatures soared to 23 degrees Celsius. But within four weeks, everything had changed. April 15 marked the beginning of our wettest summer on record. Towns such as Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire were flooded not once, but twice, and by the end of August 4000 homes across Britain had been devastated by floods. But the strange events of 2012 are only part of the story. For the past decade, our weather has been so erratic that government scientists have begun to use words like 'unprecedented' and 'extraordinary'. This programme gets to the truth of our extraordinary decade of extreme weather.

Blending dramatic archive footage, expert insight and cutting-edge graphics, the film investigates the most severe weather events to have struck Britain in recent memory and puts them into the wider context of climate change. Are the strange events of 2012 a one-off or an ominous sign of climate change in action? How does the changing global climate affect the British weather and what can we expect in the future? Is our weather getting worse?


Science and Nature; Documentaries

The Year Britain Froze
More4, 11:05pm-12:10am

Britain's roads were in chaos; planes were strewn over runways as airports ground to a halt; thousands of cars were abandoned; trains and passengers froze overnight; ambulance services had their busiest day ever; and lives were lost as a deadly freeze gripped the country. All over Britain people suffered inconvenience, hardship and danger. There were heroic rescues, tales of human tragedy and heartwarming stories of survival against the odds. This film tells the story of the extreme weather of 2010 and explores the science behind why Britain came to a frozen halt. This was not just bad weather. This was the coldest December since records began, in the year Britain froze.


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Monday 21st January

News

Panorama: Immigration Undercover
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm

More than half a million foreign migrants are estimated to be hiding from the authorities in the UK. Some are failed asylum seekers who live in graveyards and abandoned garages or 'disappear' within their own communities. They include bogus students planning to work illegally and others who have crossed the Channel hidden in the back of a lorry. Many of those without papers turn to a life of criminality involving drugs, violence and prostitution - and with money Panorama has discovered they can come and go on an illegal travel network which smuggles them OUT of the UK as well as in. Reporter Paul Kenyon goes undercover with this new type of smuggling gang - charging £1,500 a time - to help illegals out of the UK right under the nose of the British authorities.


Science and Nature; Documentaries

Jaguars: Born Free: A Natural World Special
BBC2, 9:30-10:30pm

In this Natural World special, three tiny orphaned jaguar cubs are discovered in a Brazilian forest. A family decide to take the place of their mother and train them to become wild again. Over two years they must learn to climb trees, swim, and hunt for their dinner. If they can be successfully released, it will give new hope to these rare animals. Narrated by Zoe Wanamaker.


Factual; Documentaries

Crazy for Party Drugs
BBC3, 9:00-10:00pm

Britain's drug culture is changing - fast. Cocaine and ecstasy are out and mephedrone, ketamine and GHB are in. Shot in Leeds over the biggest party weekend of the year - Halloween and Bonfire Night - this film gets under the skin of the new party drugs. We follow Holly, Tony and Oliver from the dancefloor to the morning after and, with unique access to the first specialist 'club drug clinic' outside London, we find out what happens to those who want to keep going even when the party's over. 

Factaul; Documentaries

Harry Belafonte: Sing Your Song
BBC4, 10:00-10:00pm

Storyville: Wonderfully archived and told with a remarkable sense of intimacy, visual style and musical panache, this inspiring biographical documentary surveys the life and times of singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte. From his rise to fame as a singer and his experiences touring a segregated country to his provocative crossover into Hollywood, Belafonte's groundbreaking career personifies the American civil rights movement and impacted many other social justice movements. The film reveals Belafonte as a tenacious hands-on activist who worked intimately with Dr Martin Luther King Jr, mobilised celebrities for social justice, participated in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and took action to counter gang violence, prisons and the incarceration of youth.



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Tuesday 22nd January

Factual; History; Documentaries

Britain on Film
BBC4, 2:00-2:30am

Throughout the 1960s, the Rank Organisation produced hundreds of short, quirky documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. Shot on high-quality colour film stock, they were screened in cinemas, but until now very little of the footage has been shown on television. This series draws on this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into a pivotal decade in modern British history.


This episode examines Look at Life's coverage of what was the most important political conflict of the era - the Cold War. With international tensions rising, the series recorded the enormous anti-nuclear protests in London; the experiences of British forces stationed in Berlin; and visited Eastern Europe, to observe everyday life for the people living behind the Iron Curtain.



Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Art Deco Icons
BBC4, 2:30-3:00am

David Heathcote goes to spend the weekend at Casa Del Rio - a remarkable Art Deco fantasy house hidden away in rural Devon. He uncovers the story of Walter Price, a baker from Devon who went to visit California in the 1930s and who was so impressed by Pickfair - the glamorous residence of Hollywood stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford - that he decided to create his own Deco mansion back in the Devon countryside, complete with marble staircase built to look like a piano keyboard.


Heathcote explores the house that was the perfect glamorous weekend retreat for Price and his friends and plays with some of the many Deco gadgets that brought glamour into so many people's lives in the 1930s - a perfect toaster, a Bakelite radio and even a cocktail shaker.

The original Pickfair mansion in California was demolished, so Casa Del Rio remains as a rare British example of a Deco fantasy house, built at time when Britain was in love with Hollywood, Art Deco and its glamour.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Tales of Winter: The Art of Snow and Ice
BBC4, 9:00-10:30pm

Winter was not always beautiful. Until Pieter Bruegel painted Hunters in the Snow, the long bitter months had never been transformed into a thing of beauty. This documentary charts how mankind's ever-changing struggle with winter has been reflected in western art throughout the ages, resulting in images that are now amongst the greatest paintings of all time. With contributions from Grayson Perry, Will Self, Don McCullin and many others, the film takes an eclectic group of people from all walks of life out into the cold to reflect on the paintings that have come to define the art of snow and ice.


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Wednesday 23rd January

Factual; Science and Nature, Nature and Environment; Documentaries

Nature's Microworlds
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 1/3 - Canada's Coastal Forests

Steve Backshall pulls apart the pieces of Canada's remarkable coastal forest to reveal why this ancient sylvan environment is not only home to some of the largest trees on Earth, but also some of the greatest aggregations of top predators in North America. He untangles the complex relationships between the seasons, the landscape and the wildlife to discover what might be fuelling this forest's prolific productivity and supporting eagles, bears and wolves. In this complex coastal system, the secret to success comes in a remarkable annual event.


Factual; Science and Nature, Nature and Environment; Documentaries

Africa
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 4/6 - Cape


Southern Africa is a riot of life and colour because of two great ocean currents that sweep around the continent's Cape.
To the east, the warm Agulhas current generates clouds that roll inland to the wettest place in southern Africa. To the west is the cold Benguela current, home to more great white sharks than anywhere else. Moisture laden fog rolls inland, supporting an incredible desert garden. Where the two currents meet, the clash of warm and cold water creates one of the world's most fabulous natural spectacles - South Africa's sardine run. This is the greatest gathering of predators on the planet, including Africa's largest, the Bryde's whale.


Crime


Inside Death Row with Trevor McDonald
ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm, 1/2


There is something quite eerie and almost surreal about watching Trevor McDonald make genial chit-chat with the doomed inmates on Indiana State Maximum Security Prison’s death row. Everyone is so terribly, impeccably polite in the most incongruous of ways. One condemned man describes a fellow prisoner’s murder and mutilation of a 14-year-old girl as “uncalled-for”. This is after he attacks the murderer’s “lack of morals”.

Another man gossips quite amiably with McDonald about how his execution was commuted to a 150-year prison sentence. Another has been on death row for 18 and a half years. Why? “They said I killed three people” is his answer. Louis Theroux has done this kind of reportage before, and done it better. McDonald is too constrained by his own nice-ness, he’s not inquisitive enough. He looks terribly ill at ease, too, which is perhaps understandable; it’s a hell of a forbidding place.

The broadcaster ventures inside Indiana State Prison, meeting 12 condemned men awaiting execution and some of the other inmates in the maximum security facility. Among those Trevor talks to are Benjamin Ritchie, who murdered a policeman, and John Stephenson, who killed three people on the orders of a gang boss, while James Harrison reveals how he escaped the death penalty with only weeks to spare after accepting a deal of life inside instead. Trevor also visits the 1950s-style barber shop where all the hairdressers are convicts, including Rick Pearish who explains why they are given permission to use cut-throat razors and sharp implements.



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Thursday 24th January

Documentaries

Nursing the Nation
ITV1, 8:3-9:00pm, 4/7


When Kay is on call she can expect the phone to ring at any time. In tonight’s episode we follow her at 4am as she goes to the aid of expectant mum, Natalie, whose waters have broken. With the nearest hospital 15 miles away it is the job of Kay and her colleague Jane to help delivery the baby at home, but with Natalie’s husband, children and extended members of their family present they can only hope everything remains calm.

In Somerset District Nurse Iona attends to the needs of the elderly in her area. 72 year old Richard is one of Iona’s younger patients. He lives with his mum Doris, who at 102, is Iona’s oldest patient. Despite that she enjoys putting Iona through her paces with her feisty spirit.

Iona says, “I don’t actually consider anybody old until they’re at least 85… It’s different from being in hospital. We often go in for years and years and years, they’re just much more themselves in their own environment than they would be in a hospital ward.”

There are more than 10,000 district nurses across the country, visiting more than 2 million people every year. For many these are the unsung heroes of the NHS. They develop relationships with patients that can last for years on end and as they see them in their own homes, they often become a huge part of their lives and cornerstones of the local community.


Inside Death Row with Trevor McDonald

ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm, 1/2


Trevor McDonald’s sparse interviewing technique, mainly because it is so incongruously polite that it throws the prosaic horrors of capital punishment into stark relief.  Concluding his visit to Indiana State Prison, McDonald is led into the death chamber, where the condemned spend their final hours before the lethal injection. Later, he interviews a prisoner who slit the throats of a woman and her four-year-old daughter. “I do deserve to be executed,” says the killer during a riveting ten minutes where McDonald, a kindly stranger, just lets him talk.

The broadcaster interviews Fredrick Baer, who has been on death row at Indiana State Prison for seven years following his conviction for the murders of a woman and her four-year-old daughter. Baer talks about his abusive childhood and explains what led him to a life of crime, before Trevor visits the chamber where the condemned man will one day be executed. There's also an insight into the more privileged part of the facility, where inmates stay in a dormitory with cubicles instead of cells. There, he talks to John Serwatka, who was paid to kill two innocent strangers and will never be released.



______________________________________________

Off-air recordings for week 12-18 January 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.

____________________________________________
Monday 14th January

Factual; Arts, Culture, and the Media; Documentaries

Art Deco Icons
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm

David Heathcote explores the dramatic 1930s London Transport HQ in St James's, London. When it was built in the1930s, it was the highest skyscraper in London. Heathcote goes behind the scenes and uncovers the story of a building so controversial that Frank Pick, who commissioned it, offered to resign from the London Underground Company, because there were so many complaints about its ambitious design.


The HQ became the nerve centre for an Art Deco transformation of the underground which remains today. David Heathcote ventures out on the Piccadilly Line to Southgate to investigate. For many, it is just the scene of a crowded journey to work, but Heathcote discovers a perfect example of a co-ordinated Deco look. The sleek tube station uses streamlined features, soft uplighting and chrome to create a glamorous overall effect. It may be lost on the commuters on their way to work, but for Heathcote it is a moment to stand back and enjoy the marvel that was Art Deco.


Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment

The Polar Bear Family and Me
BBC2, 7:00-8:00pm, 1/3 - Spring

Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan follows a wild polar bear family over three seasons, something no one has done before. Gordon and arctic survival experts travel by boat to far flung Svalbard. They manage to find a polar bear birth den and meet mother Lyra and her cubs Miki and Luca as they emerge from their den.


Little is known about the family life of polar bears because no one has been able to follow them this closely before. Gordon helps scientists fit Lyra with a tracking collar and takes on the mission of living with this remarkable bear family. To help him observe the polar bears Gordon tests a 'bear proof' filming hide - the 'Ice Cube' and gets closer to polar bears than anyone has ever done before.


Factual; History; Science and Nature; Science and Technology

Why The Industrial Revolution Happened Here
BBC2, 9:30-10:30

Professor Jeremy Black examines one of the most extraordinary and revolutionary periods in British history: the industrial revolution. He explains the unique economic, social and political conditions that by the 19th century, led to Britain becoming the richest, most powerful nation on earth. It was a time that transformed the way people think, work and play forever.


He traces the unprecedented explosion of new ideas and technological inventions that transformed Britain's agricultural society into an increasingly industrial and urbanised one. "Why the Industrial Revolution Happened Here " explore's two fascinating questions - why did the industrial revolution happen when it did, and why did it happen in Britain?

Professor Black discusses the reasons behind this transformation; from Britain's coal reserves which gave it a seemingly inexhaustible source of power to the ascendency of political liberalism, with engineers and industrialists able to meet and share ideas and inventions. He explains the impact that genius's like Josiah Wedgewood had on the consumer revolution and travels to Antigua to examine the impact Britain's empire had on this extraordinary period of growth.


Factual; Documentaries

Storyville: The House I Live In
BBC4, 10:00-11:45pm

As America remains embroiled in overseas conflict, a less visible war is taking place at home, costing countless lives, destroying families and inflicting untold damage on future generations of Americans. For over forty years, the War on Drugs has accounted for 45 million arrests, made America the world's largest jailer and damaged poor communities at home and abroad. Yet for all that, drugs are more available today than ever before.


Filmed in more than twenty states, this film captures a definitive and heart-wrenching portrait of individuals at all levels of America's War on Drugs. From the dealer to the grieving mother, the narcotics officer to the senator, the inmate to the federal judge, the film offers a penetrating look inside America's longest war, revealing its profound human rights implications.

While recognising the seriousness of drug abuse as a matter of public health, the film investigates the tragic errors and shortcomings that have instead treated it as a matter for law enforcement, creating a vast political and economic machine that feeds largely on America's poor, especially minority communities. Yet beyond simple misguided policy, the film investigates how political and economic corruption have fuelled the war for forty years, despite persistent evidence of its moral, economic and practical failures.

Ultimately, the documentary seeks, through compassionate inquiry, to promote public awareness of the history and contemporary mechanics of this human rights crisis and to begin a national conversation about its reform.

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Tuesday 15th January

Factual; History; Documentaries

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, 2/3 - Developing the Regency Brand


Lucy Worsley looks at Britain in the wake of Waterloo - and asks how this new, triumphant nation wanted to be seen and how it set about celebrating itself in its architecture and design. Again, the Regent led the way. As he grew fatter, barely able to climb stairs or walk about, architecture became his chief creative outlet - and nowhere more so than in the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. At the start of his reign as Regent, this had been an elegant neoclassical villa, but working with the architect John Nash, George transformed it after 1815 into the most outrageous of palaces. In it, Lucy discovers more about the Regent's tastes, and finds out what he and his chef had in common.

But while the Regent was building away, what were his people doing? Lucy finds out why Waterloo Bridge became the official memorial to Britain's victory, and how it became an obsession for the painter John Constable. She also explores the powerful influence of the Elgin Marbles, purchased for the British Museum in 1816. These broken statues caused a revolution in Regency ideas and taste, and helped to spread the Greek revival in architecture across the British Isles - even if some buildings, like Edinburgh's very own Parthenon, didn't quite get finished.

So who was behind the Regency 'look'? Lucy finds out more about one of the most influential architects of the age, exploring Sir John Soane's strange architectural ideas and discovering some of his more unexpected legacies. But even if, to our eyes, Soane's ideas may be more exciting, it was his rival John Nash who really defined Regency style - and worked with the Regent himself.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Travel;

The Riviera: A History in Pictures

BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/2 - The Golden Era

Richard E Grant explores how modern art and the Riviera grew up together when France's Cote D'Azur became the hedonistic playground and experimental studio for the great masters of 20th century painting. With Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso resident on the coast, other artists from Jean Cocteau to Henri Lartigue, Raoul Dufy to Fernand Leger and Francis Picabia to Sergei Diaghilev were drawn to the area. As transatlantic liners brought America's super-rich to the region, art and celebrity became integrally intertwined as cultural gurus and multi-millionaires all partied on the beach. In an era of sunshine and bathing, of cinema and fast cars, of the Ballet Russes and Monte Carlo casinos, Grant discovers the extraordinary output of what became briefly the world's creative hub.


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Wednesday 16th January

Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment; Documentaries

Africa
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/3 - Congo

The very heart of Africa is covered in dense tropical rainforest. The animals that live here find the most ingenious ways to carve out their space in a claustrophobic landscape. Danger lurks in every shadow, but some animals thrive here, from honey-stealing chimps to birds with a lineage as old as the dinosaurs, thundering elephants and kick-boxing frogs. Here in the Congo, no matter how tough the competition, you must stand up and fight for yourself and your patch.


Documentaries

Saving Face
Channel 4, 10:00-11:10pm


This extended version of the Oscar-winning film Saving Face chronicles the journey of pioneering British plastic surgeon Dr Mohammad Jawad as he goes back to Pakistan to help the recovery of acid-attack victims.  Every year in Pakistan, over 100 people - most of them women - are known to be victimised by brutal acid attacks, while numerous other cases go unreported.  With little or no access to reconstructive surgery, survivors are physically and emotionally scarred. Many reported assailants, typically a husband or someone else close to the victim, receive minimal punishment from the state.

Dr Jawad is the surgeon responsible for treating British acid-attack victim Katie Piper - as documented in Channel 4's Bafta-nominated Katie: My Beautiful Face - and he regularly returns from his prominent London surgery to Pakistan to help the victims of such attacks.  The film follows Dr Jawad as he makes every effort to save and reconstruct the faces of two women.  Thirty-nine-year-old Zakia's husband threw acid over her after she filed for divorce. Most of the time she is too afraid to leave the house, while, at school, her daughter struggles to cope with the stigma.

As well as needing to alleviate the pain and restore functioning and features to her face, Zakia is bravely fighting for her husband to be brought to justice.  Rukhsana is a 23-year-old mother who was attacked with acid and set alight by her husband and in-laws. Rukhsana has had to reconcile with them and continue living under the same roof.  Her life becomes impossible as the family forbid her from seeing her daughter, and she seeks help.

This compelling True Stories documentary follows Zakia and Rukhsana, who are supported by NGOs such as the Acid Survivors Foundation-Pakistan and Islamic Help; sympathetic policymakers; attorney Ms Sarkar Abbass, who fights Zakia's case; and female politician Marvi Memon, who advocates for new legislation - all working to bring their assailants to justice and help these woman move on with their lives.

Saving Face takes an intimate look inside Pakistani society, illuminating two women's personal journey while showing how reformers in Pakistan are tackling this horrific problem.


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Thursday 17th January

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; History

Lost Kingdoms of South America
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm, 1/4 - People of the Clouds

Archaeologist Dr Jago Cooper embarks on an epic journey into the remote Peruvian Andes in search of the mysterious Chachapoya people. Once numbering half a million, they were known as the 'People of the Clouds'. Dr Cooper reveals how they developed sophisticated methods of recording stories, traded in exotic goods found hundreds of miles from their territory, and had funeral traditions that challenge assumptions about ancient human behaviour. His search for evidence takes him to astonishing cliff tombs untouched for 500 years and one of the most spectacular fortresses in South America, where the fate of the Chachapoya is revealed.


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Friday 18th January


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries

Carved with Love: The Genius of British Woodwork
BBC4, 3:00-4:00pm, 2/3 - The Glorious Grinling Brothers

Paul Copley narrates the story of Grinling Gibbons, the 17th-century woodcarver who helped restore London to its former glory in the aftermath of the Great Fire. He reveals how Gibbons' masterpieces - created for the likes of Charles II and William of Orange - were held in such high regard he came to be known as `the Michelangelo of wood'.

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