Season 2015 1965 - 2016

TV-PG

1980 was the year that both pop music and TOTP changed. A new generation of British pop arrived with Dexy's, Adam Ant, the Human League and OMD. The show changed as the veteran TOTP orchestra was laid off, the studio audience doubled in size, new sets were built and a range of celebrity co-hosts from Elton John to Kevin Keegan to Russ Abbott arrived.

This documentary explores these dramatic changes in Top of the Pops, British pop and British society with a cast including Adam Ant, the Human League, OMD, Kevin Rowlands, Coronation Street actress Sally Lindsay (who appeared with St Winifred's School Choir), Kelly Marie, Ray Dorset, Johnny Logan, the Vapors, the Piranhas and Richard Skinner.

Who are the super-rich Russian elite who have chosen to make London their home? Why have they favoured the capital city? And why do they obsess about the English education system, polo and the monarchy?

We enter the lives of an entrepreneur chased out of Russia for his liberal views and growing bank balance, as well as one of London's biggest art collectors and philanthropists. We tap into the life of Russia's top supermodel. And as we follow two debutantes preparing for the glitz and glamour of the Russian ball, we meet Princess Olga Romanov, now 64, and granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas's sister, who vividly recalls her coming out as a debutante.

Debunking some of the myths about Russians in London, this film takes us further under their skin than before. They love the capital city for its security and freedom, for them it is an English dream. But how do they see us? Why, when in London, do they still feel a need to access their Russian roots and culture? What is it that unites the Russians in London and brings them together for a fairy-tale night by the banks of the Thames? And on what do they spend their wealth?

In London, Louis sells supercars to Britain's wealthiest car enthusiasts, while Darren flogs reliable runarounds in Bridgend, Wales. They're both at the top of their game, but they're swapping jobs, customers and bosses in a bid to meet or even beat each other's targets.

The Somerset Levels are one of the most beautiful parts of Britain, but in the winter of 2013 they faced a natural disaster.

One village, Moorland, was entirely engulfed by the floods. Deluged by water, the villagers watched helplessly as their lives and homes were washed away. This programme follows their year-long struggle to get home again after the water drained and media attention shifted away.

Although the residents put on a brave face, the realities of their fate pile up - the refusal of insurance companies to pay up, and the months of delay with the builders. All this adds fuel to a heartfelt frustration that the floods were man-made and the nagging fear of what would happen to them if and when the waters return.

These days, nobody takes Rubens seriously. His vast and grandiose canvases, stuffed with wobbly mounds of female flesh, have little appeal for the modern gym-subscriber. And it's not just the bulging nudity we don't like. The entire tone of Rubens's art offends us. Everything in it is too big - the epic dramas full of tragedy, the fantastical celestial scenery, the immense canvases and murals adorning the walls and ceilings of Europe's grandest palaces. All of it seems too much for modern sensibilities.

But Waldemar Januszczak begs to differ. In Waldemar's eyes, Rubens has been traduced by modern tastes, and a huge misunderstanding of him has taken place. By looking in detail at Rubens's fascinating life, by understanding his art in more enlightened ways, Waldemar sets out to correct the extra-large misconceptions that have arisen about Rubens.

Built around the earliest, until now unseen, footage of the Clash in concert, filmed by Julien Temple as they opened the infamous Roxy club in a dilapidated Covent Garden on January 1st 1977, this show takes us on a time-travelling trip back to that strange planet that was Great Britain in the late 1970s and the moment when punk emerged into the mainstream consciousness.

Featuring the voices of Joe Strummer and the Clash from the time, and intercutting the raw and visceral footage of this iconic show, with telling moments from the BBC's New Year's Eve, Hogmanay and New Year's Day schedules of nearly 40 years ago, it celebrates that great enduring British custom of getting together, en masse and often substantially the worse for wear, to usher in the New Year.

New Year's Day is when we collectively take the time to reflect on the year that has just gone by and ponder what the new one might hold in store for us. Unknown to the unsuspecting British public, 1977 was of course the annus mirabilis of punk. The year in which the Clash themselves took off, catching the imagination of the nation's youth. As their iconic song, 1977, counts us down to midnight, we'll share with them and Joe Strummer, in previously unseen interviews from the time, their hopes and predictions for the 12 months ahead.

The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg is one of the largest and most visited museums in the world. Margy Kinmonth's film tells the story of its journey from imperial palace to state museum, investigating remarkable tales of dedication, devotion, ownership and ultimate sacrifice, showing how the collection came about, how it survived tumultuous revolutionary times and what makes the Hermitage unique today.

A look at one of the most exclusive holiday destinations in the world - Necker Island. This reveals how the rich holiday, and what it's like for the staff who serve them.

Since the release of the Bat Out of Hell album, Meat Loaf has possessed the kind of international status that few artists obtain. His larger-than-life persona and performances are fuelled by a passion for theatre and storytelling. This candid profile reveals the man and his music through his own testimony and from the accounts of those closest to him.
Meat Loaf's life story is one of epic proportions - he survived a childhood of domestic violence only to face years of record company rejection before eventually finding global fame. Along the way he experienced bankruptcy, health scares, bust-ups and one of the greatest comebacks of all time. All this and more is explored in the film, which features behind-the-scenes footage of his recent Las Vegas residency, plus plans for a new album featuring songs by Jim Steinman.
The film also revisits the Dallas of Meat Loaf's early years and includes insights from his high school friends, who reveal how Meat really got his famous moniker.
After his mother died, Meat Loaf fled Texas for the bright lights of LA. He sang in itinerant rock bands, but no-one would give him a recording contract. By 1969 he was broke and disillusioned. His break would take the form of a musical. He was offered a part in Hair, having been invited to audition whilst working as a parking attendant outside the theatre. Shortly afterwards he met Jim Steinman and the road to success really began. Yet the Hair gig was the beginning of an enduring love affair with theatre that is reflected in his singing persona today.
His first album, the now legendary Bat Out of Hell, was initially rejected by scores of record companies, yet went on to spend a staggering 485 weeks in the UK charts. The whole album is a masterwork of storytelling that Meat Loaf and Steinman worked on for four years and then battled to get heard. Meat Loaf and those who worked on the album - from Todd Rundgren to Ellen Foley - reflect on the songs, and celebrate the alchemy that resulted

Lucy Worsley and David Starkey celebrate the 500th anniversary of Britain's finest surviving Tudor building, Hampton Court. As Henry VIII's pleasure palace, Hampton Court was a showcase for royal magnificence and ceremony - and the most important event of all was the christening of Henry's long-awaited son, Prince Edward, on October 15th, 1537.
Lucy and David explore how Tudor art, architecture and ritual came together for this momentous occasion. Drawing on historical records and with the help of a team of experts, they recreate key elements of the christening ceremony - including a magnificent set piece procession through Hampton Court involving nearly 100 people in full Tudor costume.

Tim Whewell is in St Petersburg to meet the self-styled Russian nationalists and patriots who are volunteering to join the fighting in eastern Ukraine. He joins a group of volunteers as they undertake military training, and travels to Ukraine to see how the volunteer force is fighting on the ground.

A beautifully cinematic documentary following a year in the life of England's highest mountain, Scafell Pike, through the eyes of the farmers who work the valleys and fells, those who climb the mountain for pleasure and those who try to protect its slopes.
Filmed over a twelve-month period, it follows the seasons on the mountain from spring lambs through to winter snows. The contributions of the British Mountaineering Council and National Trust volunteers make clear the crucial importance of maintaining the landscape quality of England's highest peak for future generations.

In a disarmingly frank interview, Holocaust survivor Freddie Knoller (now in his 90s) tells his personal story of being a young Jewish man during World War II. Speaking directly to camera and accompanied by extensive archive footage, he relives his past and draws on intense memories to navigate the extraordinary adventure of his early life. Freddie's story is a dramatic - and often surprisingly funny - real-life account.

It takes us from his family life in 1930s Vienna through the German occupation of Austria and his flight to Belgium. Then onto Nazi-occupied Paris, where Freddie lived and worked in red-light Pigalle, entertaining German officers and socialising with dancing girls, before an interrogation by the Gestapo meant he had to move on again. After a brief spell in the Resistance, the war eventually caught up with him and his life in Auschwitz began.

Tom Service plunges into the life and times of Mozart to try and rediscover the greatness and humanity of the living man in his moment. Mozart's prodigious output and untimely death have helped place him on a pedestal that can often blind us to the unique brilliance of his work in the context of his life and times. Tackling the sentimental tourist industry of Salzburg and the cloying reverence in which Mozart is too often held, Service visits the key cities and rooms in which Mozart lived and worked, plays some of Mozart's original instruments and scores, and gradually uncovers the brilliance and originality of his work as the 18th century turns into the early 19th.
There is the prodigious childhood when Mozart was feted as an infant phenomenon around Europe's most glittering courts, and his golden decade in Vienna in which masterpiece followed masterpiece - operas, symphonies, piano concertos, string quartets - as if this short, high-voiced man-child must have been taking dictation from some divine source, until his death at the age of just 35 in 1791.
Even more than the music, Mozart's tragic demise sets the seal on his myth. The trajectory of Mozart's life sets the template for the romantic paradigm whose throes we are still in today, which requires our creative heroes to die young to prove that they were too good for this madding world, whether it be Wolfgang Amadeus or Jimi Hendrix.
Service travels from London to Vienna and Salzberg, unpicking the living, breathing genius that was Mozart. With Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Nicola Benedetti, Paul Morley and others.

Documentary in which a 69-year-old horsewoman from New Zealand sets off on an extraordinary journey to find the truth about the origins of the rare Appaloosa spotted horse. Back in the saddle for the first time in 12 years, she crosses one of the world's highest mountain ranges in search of a lost valley, where she hopes to discover whether the experts have been wrong all along and that the true source of the North American Appaloosa horse is Asia and not Europe, as the history books would have us believe.

An inspirational adventure story inspired by a lifelong passion for horses.

OJ Borg explores the growth of electronic sports, the professional players who take part, and the debate on whether gaming could be considered as a true sport.

Presenter Lucy Cooke sets out to explore the phenomenon of seagulls, foxes, squirrels and badgers which are now living in our towns and stealing our food.

Starting in the seaside resort of St Ives in Cornwall, Lucy witnesses for herself the seagulls that will swoop from 50 metres and steal a sandwich out of your hand. At the height of the summer season there are as many as 15 snatches a day from tourists. With the help of bird experts Professor Graham Martin and Steven Portugal, Lucy sets up a range of tests and GPS tagging to discover exactly what makes the seagulls such good thieves.

Lucy also goes to Rustington in Sussex, where she discovers that the fox population is increasing dramatically. She sets up a test to discover whether - given the choice - foxes would choose jam sandwiches and sausage rolls or the more natural diet of worms and fruit.

Lucy goes to Hertfordshire to encounter the black squirrel - a variety of the grey squirrel - which is now spreading through Hertfordshire and southern England. She observes it tackling a challenging homemade assault course built in a suburban garden in order to steal nuts from a bird feeder. And she explores how the unusual 180-degree ankle joint of a squirrel makes it such a good thief.

Back in St Ives, Lucy discovers that badgers outnumber foxes in the town and they are regularly eating food from gardens. One family of badgers has developed a liking for peanut butter sandwiches!

With numbers of urban gulls up to around 250,000 in the UK and urban foxes and badgers on the increase, Lucy concludes that the phenomenon of seagulls, badgers, foxes and squirrels living in our towns and stealing our food is here to stay and we humans must learn to live alongside them.

On the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill's death, Jeremy Paxman tells the story of the send-off which Britain gave to the man who led the country to victory in the Second World War. More than a million people came to line the streets of London on the freezing day in late January to pay their respects as his coffin was taken from the lying-in-state at Westminster to St Paul's Cathedral. Millions more watched the state funeral on television. Churchill was the only commoner in the twentieth century to receive the honour of such a magnificent ceremony.

In the programme, Jeremy explores whether Churchill's immense legacy still has relevance today and meets a wide range of people who were involved in the events of that day, from soldiers who bore the coffin, to members of Churchill's close family. He hears from Boris Johnson, author of a new book on Churchill, and from a London docker who remembers that some of the dock workers had misgivings about saluting the passing coffin with their cranes as it passed down the Thames on a launch after the ceremony at St Paul's - one of the most memorable moments of that extraordinary day.

The funeral ended at the village churchyard of Bladon where Churchill was laid to rest alongside his father, Randolph. At the close of the film, Jeremy reflects that no statesman has come close to rivalling Winston Churchill in the half a century since our nation mourned his passing.

On 27 January 1945, Auschwitz was liberated. 70 years later the international community will gather, as it does every year, to remember the atrocities of the holocaust and reinforce the message that this paradigm of evil must never happen again. But as time passes the numbers of survivors are growing smaller, and without their testimonies how will the memory of the Holocaust be kept alive? In this film to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, three extraordinary women tell their powerful personal stories to reveal just why the memory of one of the darkest moments in human history should never be forgotten.

With the anniversary of Sir Winston Churchill's death, 50 years on BBC Television presents an obituary to a beloved war hero and a much-respected statesman. Archive footage, stills and contributions from old friends and colleagues fill in the details of a colourful history spanning 90 years.

We take our liberties for granted. They seem absolute and untouchable. But they are the result of a series of violent struggles fought over 800 years that, at times, have threatened to tear our society apart. On the frontline was a document originally inked on animal skin - Magna Carta.

Distinguished constitutional historian David Starkey looks at the origins of the Great Charter, created in 1215 to check the abuses of King John - and how it nearly died at birth. He explores its subsequent deployment, its contribution to making everyone - even the monarch - subject to the rule of law, and how this quintessentially English document migrated to the North American colonies and eventually became the foundation of the US constitution.

Magna Carta has become a universal symbol of individual freedom against the tyranny of the state, but with ever-tightening government control on our lives, is it time to resurrect it?

Starkey has a special encounter with an original Magna Carta manuscript at the British Library, one of only four from 1215 to survive. He also examines other unique medieval manuscripts that trace the tumultuous history of Magna Carta, the Article of the Barons listing their demands in June 1215, and the papal bull declaring Magna Carta null and void less than two months after it was sealed.

This feature-length documentary attempts to answer one of the most profound questions of the Holocaust - what was the human legacy of the crime?

Producer and director Laurence Rees (The Nazis: A Warning from History, Auschwitz: The Nazis and The Final Solution) has travelled extensively in order to film six Auschwitz survivors along with their friends and families. Together, these sequences filmed in Jerusalem, Chicago, London, Bavaria, Krakow and Tel Aviv build into a compelling portrait of the problems, challenges and triumphs that six different individuals have experienced since the war as a result of their time in Auschwitz.

Birds of paradise are one of David Attenborough's lifelong passions. He was the first to film many of their beautiful and often bizarre displays, and over his lifetime he has tracked them all over the jungles of New Guinea. In this very personal film, he uncovers the remarkable story of how these 'birds from paradise' have captivated explorers, naturalists, artists, film-makers and even royalty. He explores the myths surrounding their discovery 500 years ago, the latest extraordinary behaviour captured on camera and reveals the scientific truth behind their beauty: the evolution of their spectacular appearance has in fact been driven by sex.

And in a final contemporary twist to this story of obsession and royalty, he travels to the desert of Qatar, to a state-of-the-art facility which houses the largest breeding group of these birds in the world - a sheikh's very own private collection. There he has his closest ever encounter with a greater bird of paradise and its dramatic display, reliving the experience that captivated him in the forests of New Guinea more than 50 years ago.

'For me birds of paradise are the most romantic and glamorous birds in the world. And this is a film I have wanted to make for 40 years.' - Sir David Attenborough.

It's a timeless classic of children's literature and the third most-quoted book in English after the Bible and Shakespeare. But what lies behind the extraordinary appeal of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to generations of adults and children alike?

To mark the 150th anniversary of its publication, this documentary explores the life and imagination of the man who wrote it, the Reverend Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll. Broadcaster and journalist Martha Kearney delves into the biographies of both Carroll himself and of the young girl, Alice Liddell, who inspired his most famous creation.

Kearney's lifelong passion for Carroll's work began as a young girl, when she starred as Carroll's heroine Alice in her local village play. She discusses the book with a range of experts, biographers and distinguished cultural figures - from the actor Richard E Grant to children's author Philip Pullman - and explores with them the mystery of how a retiring, buttoned-up and meticulous mathematics don, who spent almost his entire life within the cloistered confines of Christ Church Oxford, was able to capture the world of childhood in such a captivating way.

Documentary telling the amazing story of how a group of reclusive Rhineland experimentalists called Kraftwerk became one of the most influential pop groups of all time. It is a celebration of the band featuring exclusive live tracks filmed at their Tate Modern shows in London in February 2013, interwoven with expert analysis, archive footage of the group going back to 1970, newsreel of the era and newly shot cinematic evocations of their obsessions. With contributions from techno pioneer Derrick May, Can founder Holger Czukay, DJ and remixer Francois Kevorkian, graphic design guru Neville Brody, writer Paul Morley, band photographer Peter Boettcher, Tate Modern curator Caroline Wood and others.

Kraftwerk are very much in the news at the moment as they are currently playing a week of concerts at the New National Gallery in Berlin (to follow other concert-events including those at the Tate, Sydney Opera House , New York's MOMA etc), the first international academic conference on the group, 'Industrielle Volksmusic for the C21', is to be held at Aston University on January 21st/22nd, and interest has been stirred by recent books exploring the group in the context of Krautrock such as David Stubbs's Future Days.

Documentary telling the amazing story of how a group of reclusive Rhineland experimentalists called Kraftwerk became one of the most influential pop groups of all time. It is a celebration of the band featuring exclusive live tracks filmed at their Tate Modern shows in London in February 2013, interwoven with expert analysis, archive footage of the group going back to 1970, newsreel of the era and newly shot cinematic evocations of their obsessions. With contributions from techno pioneer Derrick May, Can founder Holger Czukay, DJ and remixer Francois Kevorkian, graphic design guru Neville Brody, writer Paul Morley, band photographer Peter Boettcher, Tate Modern curator Caroline Wood and others.

Kraftwerk are very much in the news at the moment as they are currently playing a week of concerts at the New National Gallery in Berlin (to follow other concert-events including those at the Tate, Sydney Opera House , New York's MOMA etc), the first international academic conference on the group, 'Industrielle Volksmusic for the C21', is to be held at Aston University on January 21st/22nd, and interest has been stirred by recent books exploring the group in the context of Krautrock such as David Stubbs's Future Days.

In July 2014 the world was stunned by the deaths of nearly 300 people as their plane was shot down above eastern Ukraine. One of the victims was Glenn Thomas from Blackpool.

Politicians used to have the confidence to tell us stories that made sense of the chaos of world events. But now there are no big stories and politicians react randomly to every new crisis - leaving us bewildered and disorientated.

Bitter Lake is a new, adventurous and epic film by Adam Curtis that explains why the big stories that politicians tell us have become so simplified that we can’t really see the world any longer.

The narrative goes all over the world, America, Britain, Russia and Saudi Arabia - but the country at the heart of it is Afghanistan. Because Afghanistan is the place that has confronted our politicians with the terrible truth - that they cannot understand what is going on any longer.

The film reveals the forces that over the past thirty years rose up and undermined the confidence of politics to understand the world. And it shows the strange, dark role that Saudi Arabia has played in this.

But Bitter Lake is also experimental. Curtis has taken the unedited rushes of everything that the BBC has ever shot in Afghanistan - and used them in new and radical ways.
He has tried to build a different and more emotional way of depicting what really happened in Afghanistan. A counterpoint to the thin, narrow and increasingly destructive stories told by those in power today.

Ben Robinson retraces the dramatic last days of King John, England's most disastrous monarch, and uncovers the legend of his lost treasure.

Ten days took King John from ruler of an empire to sudden death, and left the kingdom in ruins. John is famous for the creation of Magna Carta, which inspired our modern democracy.

Ben follows in the footsteps of the King's epic last journey, from the treacherous marshes of East Anglia, through Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, to his final resting place in Worcester. He is joined by medieval historian professor Stephen Church.

Together they examine the truth behind the legend that has lived on for 800 years. Did the crown jewels really end up in the mud of the Wash? Was the King poisoned? Does he deserve his reputation as our most disastrous monarch?

Thanks to unique documents, we can tell this epic tale in the King's own words. Not only can we get into the mind of the Magna Carta King, we can reveal in fantastic detail how and where he travelled.

Ben reveals what happened when treasure seekers attempted to find the King's lost jewels with the help of a diviner. And using the latest technology reveals how we can actually see back in time to reveal the landscape as it would have looked when King John made his last journey 800 years ago.

A remarkable film record of the legendary Everest expedition of 1924, newly restored by the BFI National Archive.

The third attempt to climb Everest culminated in the deaths of two of the finest climbers of their generation, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, and sparked an ongoing debate over whether or not they did indeed reach the summit.

Filming in brutally harsh conditions, Captain John Noel captured images of breathtaking beauty and considerable historic significance, including the earliest filmed records of life in Tibet. But what resonates so deeply is Noel's ability to frame the vulnerability, isolation and courage of people persevering in one of the world's harshest landscapes.

The restoration by the BFI National Archive has transformed the quality of the surviving elements of the film and reintroduced the original coloured tints and tones. The original silent film is brought to life as never before by a haunting new soundtrack composed by Simon Fisher Turner. Revealed by the restoration, few images in cinema are as epic - or moving - as the final shots of a blood red sunset over the Himalayas.

Abortion is against the law in Northern Ireland, unlike the rest of the UK, where it has been legal for nearly 50 years. In the Republic of Ireland, the right-to-life of unborn children is enshrined in the constitution. But these laws don't stop Irish women having abortions. In this film, reporter Alys Harte shares her investigation into the abortion issue and how it divides the young people of Ireland.

Historian Dan Snow explores the greatest maritime archaeology project in British history - the Mary Rose. Using 40 years of BBC archive footage Dan charts how the Mary Rose was discovered, excavated and eventually raised, and what the latest research has revealed about this iconic ship and her crew. Dan also investigates how the Mary Rose project helped create modern underwater archaeology, examining the techniques, challenges and triumphs of the divers and archaeologists involved.

Olympic bronze medal-winning diver Tom Daley gives BBC Sport's Nick Hope a look at his preparations for the Rio 2016 Games as he visits the host city in Brazil for the first time.

On the 50th anniversary of the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, a chance to see the BBC's full coverage of the day's events with this archive broadcast of the original live transmission from 30 January 1965. Introduced by the grandson of Winston Churchill, Sir Nicholas Soames.

There aren't many days that can be said to have changed the course of history, but there aren't many days like 6 June 1944 - D-Day. What was at stake was the freedom of the western world. In this compilation of three short films specially made for schools, historian Dan Snow examines how two years of meticulous planning, espionage and the analysis of millions of 3-D aerial reconnaissance photographs shaped that day.

But D-Day is also a powerful and compelling story of heroism, self-sacrifice and determination and this is perhaps the last chance to hear the extraordinary first-hand testimonies of those who risked their lives to save the world from Nazi tyranny. With unprecedented access to thousands of top secret 3-D spy photographs, compelling storytelling, state of the art graphics and dramatic reconstruction, these three films bring one day in June into sharp relief for a new generation.

n Berlin in 1935, Regina Jonas made history as the first officially ordained female rabbi. During the Second World War, knowing that she was to be sent to the concentration camps, she placed in her synagogue all her documents and the only photograph ever taken of her, trusting that in the event of her death there would be survivors who might be inspired by her thoughts and example. She died in Auschwitz in 1942, and was completely forgotten.

Through her rediscovered official ordination papers, personal correspondence and newspaper articles she left behind, her story can now be told on television for the first time. Featuring rare archival footage showing the rich Jewish life and culture that formed the backdrop of her times, the film traces Regina's life from her upbringing in Berlin as the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish peddler, through her studies to her ordination in 1935. During the Nazi era and the war, her sermons and her unparalleled dedication brought encouragement to the persecuted German Jews.

Winner of the Lia Award at the 2013 Jerusalem Film Festival, the Warsaw Phoenix Award 2014 and featuring Rachel Weisz as the voice of Regina.

Eyewitness accounts from history, brought to life in animation.

Elderly survivors recount their childhood experiences of Nazi atrocities, their escape from occupied mainland Europe to Britain, adapting to life in the UK and the impact on their lives subsequently.

Ruth is a five-year-old girl escaping from eastern Germany and from Nazi-occupied Prague. She arrives in England the moment war is declared.

Martin is an eight-year-old boy, expelled from Germany to Poland in the middle of the night by the Nazis, who escapes to England only to experience the worst of the Blitz in Coventry.

Trude is a frightened nine-year-old brought to England without her family on the Kindertransport, who struggles to adapt to life in Britain away from her parents.

Heinz is a 13-year-old boy who witnesses the effects of anti-Jewish laws, Nazi demonstrations and pogroms, and escapes persecution in Germany only to be arrested as an 'enemy alien' in Britain.

Resourceful 14-year-old Arek survives against all odds in appalling conditions in the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Suzanne, aged six, is violently separated from her parents in Nazi-occupied Paris. Deprived of her family, freedom and education, she is hidden in the countryside and forced to work on a farm.

We also get a chance to meet the real-life survivors today in short, on-camera interviews, which reflect on the effect these experiences have had on their adult lives. They discuss why it is important to keep the memory alive of those who were murdered by the Nazis, the importance of Holocaust education, and an appeal to humanity to keep vigilant so that such horrors could never happen again.

Michael Wood tells the extraordinary story of an ordinary woman in a time of revolution. Born during the reign of Henry VIII, Mary Arden is the daughter of a Warwickshire farmer, but she marries into a new life in the rising Tudor middle class in Stratford-upon-Avon. There she has eight children, three of whom die young. Her husband becomes mayor, but is bankrupted by his shady business dealings. Faced with financial ruin, religious persecution and power politics, the family is the glue that keeps them together until they are rescued by Mary's successful eldest son - William Shakespeare!

There are all sorts of incredible species of animal in the world, but there are a few that we think are special. We love them for their big eyes or furry faces but we also fall for the sounds they make and the way they move - who doesn't love a waddling penguin? These animals have become online celebrities, with millions of us finding and sharing videos every day - a tiny snoring hummingbird or a sneezing panda is just too cute not to share.

Gordon Buchanan has dedicated his life to filming wildlife. He wants to understand why we have such a strong emotional response to these particular species. Why a baby panda makes us go all gooey or why a squeaking frog got over 11 million internet hits. Travelling to meet these super cute animals, he reveals the surprising science behind each of the animals we love so much, starting with one of the most iconic animals on the planet, the giant panda. The panda's beautiful markings set it apart, but it's that big round oversized head that makes it so unusual. Although we find the teddy bear look incredibly appealing, for the panda, the size of its head tells the story of millions of years of evolution and survival.

Gordon also meets the fennec fox, with big ears that look sweet but are actually crucial to the fennec's survival out in the Sahara. He travels to Kenya to meet young elephants learning how to perfect their trunk skills and discovers the surprising secret behind a penguin's comic waddle. He hangs out with Eli, a five-year-old chimpanzee whose giggle can give us new information about our own evolution, and discovers just why snoring can help a tiny hummingbird conserve enough energy to make it through the night.

Three British bands defined the British Invasion of 1964 which changed America. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Dave Clark Five.
Fifty years later this film tells the story of the Dave Clark Five, their emergence from working-class Tottenham, their unique sound, their close friendship, their self-managed business philosophy and the youthful exuberance with which they captured the USA.
Testifying to the lasting impact of the band and what made them unique in an era of brilliant, game-changing creativity, Dave Clark's two-hour documentary features newly filmed interviews with Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Sir Ian McKellen, Stevie Wonder, Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, Bruce Springsteen, Steven van Zandt of the E Street Band, Gene Simmons of Kiss, Whoopi Goldberg, Dionne Warwick and Twiggy. Interwoven throughout, boyhood fan Tom Hanks' inspirational and moving speech at the DC5's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2008 explains what five guys from north London and the Tottenham Sound meant to Hanks' generation. As well as barnstorming live and TV performances by the DC5, the film weaves archive interviews with band members alongside extraordinary rarely seen footage of the DC5 on tour and in the studio and also features rare TV footage from the legendary Ready Steady Go! series, where the DC5's fellow pop pioneers the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Dusty Springfield, Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding highlight a time of unparalleled excitement and innovation. This film captures the youth, innocence and zany zest of the swinging 60s and the Dave Clark Five's driving role in those years.
And Beyond the '60s? Unseen archive interviews and performances with Sir Laurence Olivier and Freddie Mercury feature among the rare footage telling the story of TIME, the spectacular, innovative and visionary rock musical with which producer and entrepreneur Dave Clark reinvented London's live music

Matt Berry explores the mating rituals of exotic beasts in their pursuit of sex.

In the first television biography of the celebrated conductor Sir Simon Rattle for 15 years, this documentary provides unique insights into the working life of one of the world's most acclaimed musicians. To mark his 60th birthday, we follow Rattle through a demanding year of rehearsals and performances with five different orchestras, from the South Bank to Taiwan, as he talks candidly about his life and beliefs.

Through the lens of archive footage we explore a remarkable journey spanning four decades, from his early days with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the tender age of 22 to his current post as chief conductor and artistic director of the Berlin Philharmonic. We see how his dynamic leadership of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra made him a household name which is said to have inspired the rebuilding of a city, while he remains someone who still has his own doubts before every performance.

There are contributions from artists and friends who have worked closely with him, including violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, composer Thomas Adès, singers Roderick Williams and Mark Padmore, theatre director Peter Sellars and the managing director of the Barbican, Sir Nicholas Kenyon.

William McIlvanney, who died this month, was one of Scotland's greatest and most enigmatic writers, responsible for groundbreaking novels such as Docherty and Laidlaw.

In this powerful, funny and affectionate portrait, filmed earlier this year, McIllvanney looks back on his life's work as it is rediscovered by a new generation of readers.

Using the BBC film archives, historian Vanessa Collinridge explores how our view of Cleopatra has changed and evolved over the years - from Roman propaganda, through Shakespeare's role in casting her as a doomed romantic heroine, to her portrayal in the golden age of Hollywood.

Along the way Vanessa investigates Cleopatra's relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, her role as a politician, whether she should be seen as a murderer, and her tragic end. Drawing on the views of academic experts, BBC documentaries and drama, Vanessa charts how, throughout history, Cleopatra's image has been subject to myth, cliché and propaganda.

Using 50 years of BBC history archive film, Dr Alice Roberts explores how our views and understanding of Roman Britain have changed and evolved over the decades.

Along the way she investigates a diverse range of subjects from the Roman invasion, through Hadrian's Wall, the Vindolanda tablets and the eventual collapse of Roman rule. Drawing on the work of archaeologists and historians throughout the decades, Alice uncovers how and why our views of this much-loved period of our history have forever been in flux.

Comedian Jolyon Rubinstein is on a mission. He wants to find out why the Facebook generation is so disengaged from politics. With the general election just around the corner, according to a recent survey less than a quarter of under 25s plan to vote. Is this just apathy and ignorance? Or is something else going on? The film is packed with stunts, pranks and some pretty serious interviews in which Jolyon seeks to find the answers.

Dr Michael Mosley explores the bizarre and fascinating world of parasites by turning his body into a living laboratory and deliberately infesting himself with them. He travels to Kenya to give himself a tapeworm - a parasite that can grow to many metres inside the human gut. He also encounters lice, leeches and the deadly malaria parasite, before swallowing a pill-camera to reveal what is growing within him. By the end of his infestation Michael learns a new-found respect for these extraordinary creatures, which can live off and even take control of their hosts for their own survival.

Two-part documentary. Steve Hewlett examines the controversial methods Mark Bolland used to rebuild Prince Charles's public image after Princess Diana's death.

Written and presented by Steve Hewlett, the series is told principally through the first-hand testimony of those who were there: ex-royal advisors, editors, photographers, journalists, royal correspondents - and an enormously rich archive.

This episode looks at how the experience of growing up in the media spotlight has affected Princes William and Harry, and their attitudes to the press and media. Seismic events like the phone-hacking scandal - which started with the royal princes - and the impact of the Leveson Inquiry that followed have tipped the balance of power in their favour.

The relationship between the royal family and the BBC is also examined, the so-called 'Queengate' fiasco - where a trailer for a royal documentary was cut as if to show the Queen storming out of a photo session with the American photographer Annie Leibowitz. The programme recounts how, in the aftermath, another still-unseen documentary celebrating the life of Princess Diana was shelved by the corporation.

The programme also looks at the question of succession. For Prince Charles it is now not so much his private life as his personal views that are under the microscope, and their potential impact on his upcoming kingship is explored.

What's your idea of the perfect birth? Do you want every medical intervention known to science or do you want to go it alone, without the help of a doctor or midwife? And what about after birth? Perhaps you'll hang on to your baby's placenta and carry it around with your newborn until it dries and drops off naturally? Or maybe you'll decide to eat it by whizzing it up into a smoothie?

This film follows four pregnant women all making very different choices around their births, all determined to do it their way. 37-year-old Jo plans to deliver her baby completely alone on board her barge, without the assistance of any medical professional. By contrast, 34-year-old Anna is opting to sidestep the pains of labour and book in for a c-section at the Portland Hospital in London. Anna wants all the medication available and she doesn't want to feel a thing.

There are plenty of unusual plans for after the birth too. In Devon, 33-year-old Lisa plans to lotus birth - she'll leave her baby's umbilical cord attached to its placenta and she'll keep it fresh by dusting it with salt, rose petals and lavender oil. 35-year-old Kati from Manchester is going to whizz her afterbirth into a smoothie and consume it over a number of days. She hopes it will help her stave off post-natal baby blues and bounce back as quickly as possible.

Fending off bewildered looks and concerns from friends, family and medical professionals, each woman is going against convention to have the birth she wants. There are free and frank discussions between mums and daughters and decisions to go against medical advice. So does breaking with the norm and sticking to your guns pay off? And what really is the perfect birth?

An unprecedented insight into the heartland of UKIP that follows the party faithful as they ride high in the polls and try - but fail - to avoid the gaffes the media are looking for. Thanet on the Kent coast is where Nigel Farage has chosen to stand for parliament, but this timely film is about the local party activists who stand firmly behind him rather than the media-savvy leader himself. Filmed over six months, these true believers explain the UKIP phenomena, but there are also jaw-dropping views on race the national party would definitely prefer weren't aired.

There's a revolution going on in supermarkets. After years of relentless expansion, these huge businesses - names as big as Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons - face closing stores and desperately slashing prices. So what's really happening in an industry that dominates our shopping lives?

Cherry Healey gains behind-the-scenes access to see how these companies are adapting to a seismic shift in shopping habits. She discovers how Aldi and Lidl won over the hard-up shopper tired of too much choice, and how the big supermarkets lose as much as £15 for every shop done online.

A visit to Britain's only 'virtual supermarket' reveals how these giants of retail make up to a third of their profits not from customers, but the companies supplying the goods. Plus, how supermarkets are reshaping their stores to lure us in. Cherry also spends time with the people driving this transformation - the shoppers themselves -and tests out whether we really are seeing a once-in-a-generation change in the way we buy our groceries.

Pioneering the journey from rhythm and blues to funk, James Brown forever changed the face of American music. Mr Dynamite follows the story of Brown as he escaped his impoverished southern roots to become the biggest name in soul music and one of the most important music talents of the 20th century. This captivating film utilises never-before-seen concert footage, interviews with Brown from a variety of sources and recent insights from band members and others who knew the singer, to tell the remarkable story of the supremely gifted and enormously influential American musical icon. Mick Jagger is among those who recall his magnetic showmanship - first catching Brown's act from the balcony of the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, only to have Brown steal the spotlight when they performed on the same Los Angeles television show. Beyond musical talent, the film documents how Brown played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement, whilst later endorsing Richard Nixon, whose politics chimed with his own entrepreneurship.

At the time of his death in April 1973, aged 91, Pablo Picasso had become one of the 20th century's most influential and prolific artists. Picasso has been painted as many men - genius, womaniser, egomaniac. His reputation is still fiercely debated. Brought up in the Spanish town of Malaga, he would represent himself as the mythological minotaur - half man, half bull. The bull craved the women who would feed his life and his art.

Picasso reconstructed the female form - to the point of total abstraction. Many women would find themselves damaged forever by the experience of being his partner. Now, for the first time, the people who knew him best tell the story of those women, giving a new insight into the artist and his work.

On June 4 1976, four young men from ruined, post-industrial Manchester went to see a Sex Pistols show at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall. Inspired by the gig that is now credited with igniting the Manchester music scene, they formed what was to become one of the world's most influential bands, Joy Division.

Over thirty years later, despite a tragedy that was to cut them off in their prime, they are enjoying a larger audience and more influence than ever before, with a profound legacy that resonates fiercely in today's heavily manufactured pop culture.

Featuring the unprecedented participation of all the surviving band members, this film examines the band's story through never-before-seen live performance footage, personal photos, period films and newly discovered audiotapes.

A fresh visual account of a unique time and place, this is the untold story of how four men transcended economic and cultural barriers to produce an enduring musical legacy, at a time of great social and political change.

A very personal portrait of the truly unique comedy genius of Spike Milligan, as told in his own words and featuring exclusive home movie footage. With contributions from those who worked with him, lived with him and were inspired by him.

Actor Michael Sheen goes on a personal journey to find out why there is so much political disillusionment in Wales today.
Walking in the footsteps of the Chartists, who 175 years ago gave their lives for democracy, he asks why do ordinary people and politicians seem so far apart?

The Great European Disaster Movie is an authored documentary by Italian director Annalisa Piras and former editor of The Economist Bill Emmott, which explores the crisis facing Europe.
Through case-studies of citizens in different countries, the film explores a range of factors that have led to the present crisis, economic and identity challenges across Europe. High-level experts analyse how and why things are going so wrong.

The film includes fictional scenes, set in a post-EU future, which feature archaeologist Charles Granda, played by Angus Deayton, travelling on a flight through a menacing storm, explaining to a child passenger what the EU was.

Sombre, thought-provoking and witty, the film frames Europe through the eyes of those who have most at stake: the Europeans themselves.

The Great European Disaster Movie will be immediately followed by a special Newsnight debate at 11.20pm, which will feature a range of contributors - Bill Emmett, former editor of the Economist and one of the journalists who made the film; Peter Hitchens, columnist for Mail On Sunday; former Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Norman Lamont; Marina Prentoulis of Syriza; Mark Reckless MP; and Sonia Sodha, associate of the think-tank Demos - who will discuss issues raised in the film.

Documentary about a French gold miner and his Scottish wife; their family's quest to start a remote eco-friendly gold mine in Africa with no prior experience. Frenchman Claude Nicolay (62) has no experience whatsoever in the mining business.

Yet he has chosen to bring his Scottish wife Moira (60) and their two sons Craig (22) and Pierre (19) to Mali in West Africa on one last family adventure: to start an eco-friendly goldmine. Starting in primitive conditions in a remote mining camp, Claude has acquired a concession of 100 square kilometres with a tiny initial investment of $1m.

Learning on the job, he seeks to identify and locate a seam of gold which he is convinced must lie on the land. Claude's mission is to create an eco-friendly enterprise where gold is produced without the use of mercury or cyanide, the land is well cared for, and there is a fair deal with the local (technically illegal) mining community.

But reality soon intrudes: mistakes, malaria and mishaps lead to delay and soon the money is on the verge of running out as Claude struggles to protect his mine from a mini gold rush and his family from the onset of war.

A window into the incredible and dangerous world of daredevil war correspondent and author Ryszard Kapuscinski.

One of the most important literary voices today, Kapuscinski has spent his life trying to stay alive on foreign battlefields and struggling to stay published in the face of censorship in his native Poland. Known as 'Indiana Jones with a notepad', he is a legend among his peers, a man who has been looking for the truths of human experience in the most dangerous places.

Film-maker Gabrielle Pfeiffer travelled with Kapuscinski to four countries, capturing his true character, his passion, his humour and his demons. Her film unfolds in an engaging episodic format, in which the echoes of Kapuscinski's childhood as a war refugee interweave with his later experiences on the battlefields of the third world, in a poetic reverie of the tragedy and the absurdity of war.

What's it like to be homeless in Britain today - when you are ten years old?

BAFTA-winning film-maker Jezza Neumann follows two families for 18 months, from before they are evicted by their private landlords, through over a year in a homeless hostel and months of sofa-surfing with friends and family. Throughout this ordeal 11-year-old Ellie and 10-year-old JJ remain cheerful and resilient, trying to see what they are going through as an adventure that they will one day look back on and laugh about, once they finally have a home they can call their own once again.

But we also see the destructive impact that living with such uncertainty has on young lives, as this film brings to life before our eyes the dry statistics about how children's education, their physical and mental health, and their future chances in life all suffer as a result of homelessness and eviction.

Record numbers of low-income tenants are being evicted by private landlords. As a result over 80,000 children are now living in temporary housing in the UK, three quarters of them in London. This sensitive film brings home just how destructive that experience can be.

At the heart of the climate change debate is a paradox - we've never had more information about our changing climate, yet surveys show that the public are, if anything, getting less sure they understand what's going on.

This programme aims to remedy that, with a new perspective on the whole subject. Presented by three mathematicians - Dr Hannah Fry, Prof Norman Fenton and Prof David Spiegelhalter - it hones in on just three key numbers that clarify all the important questions around climate change. The stories behind these numbers involve an extraordinary cast of characters, almost all of whom had nothing to do with climate change, but whose work is critical to our understanding of the climate.

Horatio Nelson was Britain's greatest naval hero. He was famed for his dash-and-glory heroics. He was also a prolific letter writer. The letters reveal that Nelson was a very different and more complex man than the hero that Britain created after his death. Using Nelson's letters this drama documentary exposes Nelson's skilful and manipulative use of PR to advance his career, and shows how he was careful in his praise of his rivals - in case they threatened his own prospects. And the letters reveal how his passionate love affair with Emma Hamilton changed his life forever. Highly regarded RSC actor Jonathan Slinger portrays Nelson.

Sex, Lies and Love Bites: The Agony Aunt Story, presented by psychotherapist and agony aunt Philippa Perry, is a witty and revealing look at the problem page's enduring appeal. In the documentary Philippa picks her way through three centuries of advice on broken hearts, cheating partners and adolescent angst to uncover a fascinating portrait of our social history.

She talks to fellow agony aunts and uncles like The Telegraph's Graham Norton and The Sun's Deidre Sanders about their experiences, as well as exploring the work of advice columnists past, like the 17th-century inventor of the problem page John Dunton. The advice may change, but she discovers that, when it come to subjects like love and courtship, the same old problems keep on cropping up.

Through the work of generations of advice columnists Philippa charts the developing battle of the sexes, the rise of the middle classes and a revolution in social attitudes. For much of the 20th century, agony aunts avoided any mention of trouble in the bedroom. Philippa explores the pioneering work of agony aunts like Claire Rayner, who began to offer frank sex advice in the 1960s. Today, sex takes pride of place on the problem page, as Philippa discovers for herself when she takes a starring role in The Sun's photo casebook, which is famous for its real-life problems illustrated with pictures of semi-clad ladies.

At a time when advice is more easily available than ever before, Philippa reflects on why agony aunts are often still our first port of call, and on what makes reading about other people's problems so irresistible.

Documentary telling the poignant true story of twin sisters from China, found as babies in a cardboard box in 2003 and adopted by two separate sets of parents - one from California, the other from a remote fishing village in Norway.

In the US, Mia is raised a typical all-American girl, with a bustling life filled with violin lessons, girl scouts and soccer, while Alexandra grows up in the quietude of the breathtakingly beautiful but isolated village of Fresvik, Norway.

Neither of the adoptive parents were told their daughters were twins, but a chance sighting at the orphanage enabled them to keep in touch, until a DNA test proved their hunch had been right. Both girls grew up knowing they had an identical twin living on the other side of the world.

The film tells the remarkable story of their parallel journey, punctuated by only the odd visit, videos and photographs - until they meet for a longer visit in Norway when they are eight years old. Despite living completely different lives and speaking different languages, they are mirrors of each other - the magical bond between them is extraordinary.

This is the story of our notions of family - the genetic ones we inherit and the ones we create.

More young people than ever are disillusioned by society and a system where capitalism is king. They are fighting back. This groundswell has given birth to a new breed of young activists, who are prepared to sacrifice everything in order to stand up for the issues they believe in. This film tells the story of four extreme protesters who are using direct action, risking their safety, their freedom and their futures, to force their way to change. They are armed with the latest technology to fight an increasingly hard line. This film shows the lives of young activists who have taken their fight to the streets and are using social media to mobilise others to join them and, of course, to grab the attention of the press and celebrities to help their cause.

We meet animal rights extremist sisters, Phoebe and Jayne as they take on massive high street shops in an attempt to stop fur sales; we join environmentalist Danielle who illegally occupies an energy company against controversial fracking; Sarah takes on her local council in the fight for social housing; and we are embedded with Yaz who, after confronting Rupert Murdoch, sees the end of her long campaign against The Sun's infamous page 3, however short-lived it may be.

Hockney is the definitive exploration of one of the most significant artists of his generation. For the first time, David Hockney has given access to his personal archive of photographs and film, resulting in an unparalleled visual diary of a long life. 'I'm interested in ways of looking and trying to think of it in simple ways. If you can communicate that, of course people will respond - after all, everybody does look.' His is a long-term one-man campaign against the pessimism of the world, mastering new media - whether acrylic paint or iPad digits - in the search for a picture adequate to his sense of what it is to be alive.
The film chronicles Hockney's vast career, from his early life in working-class Bradford, where his love for pictures was developed through his admiration for cinema, to his relocation to Hollywood, where his life-long struggle to escape labels ('queer', 'working class', figurative artist') was fully realised. David Hockney offers theories about art, the universe and everything. But as Hockney reveals, it's the hidden self-interrogation that gives his famously optimistic pictures their unexpected edge and attack. As one of his oldest friends says of his early work, 'the pictures are not just about men fucking'. The subject matter is a way into the picture to see something else, to open our eyes and our minds.
Acclaimed film-maker Randall Wright offers a unique view of this unconventional artist who is now reaching new peaks of popularity worldwide, remains as charismatic as ever and at seventy seven is still working in the studio seven days a week.

In the early 1980s, Culture Club was one of the biggest bands in the world, selling 150 million records worldwide. Formed in London, the band was comprised of Boy George on vocals, Mikey Craig on bass, Roy Hay on guitar and keyboards and Jon Moss on drums. As well as their UK success, the band was huge in the USA - notching up ten top 40 hits. Being part of Band Aid cemented them as stalwarts of the 80s, a band that broke down barriers and left a huge legacy for the stars that came later, before they disbanded in 1986.

However, they are a band with a past as colourful as their music. George had a secret affair with his drummer Jon Moss and when they acrimoniously split, the band fell apart and George descended into heroin addiction. Over the years there have been numerous failed attempts to reunite the band.

In 2014 Culture Club decided to come back together to record a new album and embark on a UK and US tour. Director Mike Nicholls has unique access, following the band as they first meet in George's London home to write new material. However, it's not long before creative differences and tensions from their past begin to emerge. Faultlines develop further when the band travel to Spain to record the new album, spending two weeks working and living together in a remote recording studio.

As the band return to London to prepare for the tour, they suffer a Twitter mauling after their first big public performance on Strictly Come Dancing. Relations are even more strained when George and the band sign to separate managers and a sudden illness threatens the whole reunion.

The film looks at the band's troubled past, examining the themes of success, fame and ego, and reveals the personalities behind one of the most iconic bands of all time.

It was 1952, and polio gripped the world in fear. There was no known cause, no cure and no help in sight for parents desperate to protect their children. Across the ocean, eager to beat the potentially fatal condition, polio-afflicted President Roosevelt inspired the American public to send in their dimes to fund research.

In just a few years Joseph Salk, an ambitious 33-year-old scientist working from his basement lab in Pittsburgh, would bring infantile paralysis to its knees and change the course of medical history. Bill Gates is interviewed along with a number of world-renowned experts and survivors to tell the extraordinary story of how Dr Salk and the legendary 'march of dimes' came together to help conquer polio.

A Julien Temple film about the Strypes, the young Irish band from Co Cavan bringing blistering R&B and rock 'n' roll to a whole new generation. The film explores the band's evolution from toddlerhood, when they first began playing together, through the hard work and twists of fate that have catapulted them straight out of their small rural hometown to screaming crowds.

Theirs is a success story of the digital age. Born in the late 90s, the boys have never known a world without computers and smartphones. Going on the same musical coming-of-age quest as their early heroes, the Beatles, Stones and Kinks, they searched out the origins of R&B and the wellspring of the blues to produce their own distinctive, hard-edged sound.

A deeply human story of four young childhood friends, with a profoundly shared passion and goal, as they become adults in the world of 21st-century rock 'n' roll success.

The film is produced by Parallel Films and Elton John's Rocket Pictures.

With 2015 marking the 100th anniversary of the first British policewoman being given the power of arrest, this film takes us through the remarkable history of 100 years of Britain's female police force. It explores the individual careers and ambitions of women police officers who, through their bravery and guile, were determined to succeed in a profession that never wanted them. It's a story of class, drive and sheer guts, entwined with a darker side of sexism, snobbery, intimidation and betrayal.

Includes interviews with former policewomen who pushed boundaries in the profession such as Sislin Fay Allen, Britain's first black policewoman; Cressida Dick, Britain's highest-ever-ranking policewoman; Alison Halford, who brought a high-profile sex discrimination charge against the police; and Jackie Malton, who provided the model for Prime Suspect's Jane Tennison. These interviews are combined with fascinating facts and illuminating stories from expert historians and current serving officers who have made their careers in the specialist areas of the mounted police and firearms units.

This is a story about ingenuity and determination as well as law and order. A Fair Cop is a hidden history of our society, depicting a battle of the sexes that masked a battle for power.

A whistlestop tour of rock from over the water, taking in some of the finest Irish rock offerings from the early 70s to the present day, as captured on a variety of BBC shows from The Old Grey Whistle Test and Top of the Pops to Later... with Jools Holland.

Kicking off with Thin Lizzy's 1973 debut hit Whiskey in the Jar, the programme traces Irish rock's unfolding lineage. Performances from guitar maestro Rory Gallagher, Celtic rock godfathers Horslips and John Peel favourites the Undertones feature alongside rivals Stiff Little Fingers, with their Top of the Pops performance of Nobody's Hero, followed by post-punk U2's 1981 debut UK performance of I Will Follow from The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Then there is Sinead O'Connor's debut single performance of Mandinka, and the Pogues play the Ewan MacColl classic Dirty Old Town from 1986. Into the 90s, there is the Frank and Walters and Therapy? on Top of the Pops, along with early performances on Later...with Jools Holland from Ash and the Divine Comedy.

There is rockabilly with Imelda May's debut hit Johnny Got A Boom Boom, and then bang up to the moment is Cavan's the Strypes and Hozier, whose Take Me To Church completes this hit-driven tour through Irish rock.

Ever wondered what the nation's top ten evening meals are? Is our favourite all time dish a curry, a steak, a roast - or a pizza, pie or stew? The Hairy Bikers and Lorraine Pascale reveal all in this special programme. They show the best ways to cook our favourite meals by breathing new life into our weekly menu and empowering us to make our dinners as simple, cheap and tasty as possible. From spice shops in Scotland, apple orchards in Kent, Thai kitchens, fish and chip shops and farms, the show is packed full of top tips and interesting culinary observations - setting out the state of the nation through the food we love to eat.

Award-winning ventriloquist Nina Conti and her much-loved puppet Monkey are a huge hit in comedy clubs around the world and stars of Live at the Apollo. But now she wants to put her skills to a more meaningful end on a much more difficult stage - entertaining children in hospitals.

This film follows Nina as she trains as a giggle doctor with Theodora Children's Charity, beginning with her trying to find her clown persona, who might be Scottish... or might not. Devastated by the discovery that Monkey can only perform in hospitals if he can be boil-washed, Nina tries to go it alone with only a red nose, a few misshapen balloon animals and some slightly disappointing magic tricks. Not to mention her professional snobbery rearing up as she finds herself turning into a baby-voiced children's entertainer. Then there are the difficulties she encounters when faced with clown phobia.

Following her directorial debut with Her Master's Voice which won a Grierson Award and a BAFTA nomination, Nina Conti brings us another frank and intimate documentary about her eventful two-year stint as a hospital clown. Join her to discover whether Nina raised a laugh amongst sick children or whether she cried the tears of a clown.

In 1928, Lady Heath became the first person to fly solo from Cape Town to London. Eighty-five years later, Tracey Curtis-Taylor sets out in a vintage biplane to retrace her flight.
Her extraordinary eight-and-a-half-week journey from Cape Town to Goodwood is nearly 10,000 miles long and takes her through 15 African countries. From the beauty of the wilderness to the challenge of flying through war-torn nations, Tracey faces many of the same challenges as her aviatrix predecessor.
With aviation fuel scarce and with a top speed of only 95 miles per hour, her progress is slow and at times frightening. Tracey will need the same courage and single-minded determination of Lady Heath if she is to make her lifelong dream come true.

This film tells the story of how rock music helped to change Ireland. The 40-year-old story of Irish rock and pop music is grounded in the very different musical traditions of the two main cities of the island, Belfast and Dublin.
This musical celebration charts the lives and careers of some of the biggest selling acts in Irish rock, punk and pop from Van Morrison and Thin Lizzy to the Undertones and U2. From the pioneers of the showbands touring in the late 50s through to the modern day, the film examines their lineage and connections and how the hard-core, rocking sound of Belfast merged with the more melodic, folky Dublin tradition to form what we now recognise as Irish rock and pop.
The film explores where these bands and musicians came from and the influence the political, social and cultural environments of the day had on them and how the music influenced those environments.
With contributions from many of the heavyweights of Irish rock and pop, including U2, Sinead O'Connor and Bob Geldof, it follows their careers as they forged an international presence and looks at how they helped change the island along the way.

In his directorial debut, Tom Felton, who played the villainous Draco Malfoy in the hugely successful Harry Potter films, meets the world's most committed fans in a bid to understand what drives them.

For Tom, being involved in such a global phenomenon has meant being followed by many millions of dedicated fans all over the world. And over the past seven years he has become increasingly aware of one fan in particular - she follows him to almost every event he attends - and it has got him thinking about exactly what it takes to become this devoted. What is it that causes a regular fan to make the leap to becoming a superfan?

From Wizard World to the streets of New York, from Comic Con to behind-the-scenes action, Tom takes viewers into the reality of his world. He spends an evening with 20-year-old Brian from New York, who dedicates most nights to tracking down his favourite stage and screen stars for a selfie. He meets 26-year-old Steve from Pittsburgh, the self-proclaimed world's biggest Harry Potter fan, who has turned a basement into his very own Hogwarts. Tom also talks candidly with celebrity friends including Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and JK Rowling.

A unique insight into the world of superfans and celebrity from the perspective of one of Britain's brightest and biggest young stars, which dissects the unique relationships between the famous and their followers.

Twenty years ago, while still First Lady, Hillary Clinton made a ground-breaking speech in Beijing setting down a challenge to world leaders: to treat women's rights as human rights. Since then, a new generation of women, including Hillary herself, have risen to some of the top jobs in global politics. But 20 years on from that famous speech, has anything really changed for women?
In candid interviews, Clinton along with her predecessors as Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright talk about the commitment they made to improve women's rights – and the struggles they went through to make a difference.

The programme also hears from female politicians and campaigners from across the globe who have been making strides for change in their own countries. From the battle to give girls a right to education in Afghanistan, to preventing the growth of sex trafficking in India, the programme hears from the women who dare to speak out for their gender. In Liberia women helped bring an end to the civil war by making waves in their community. Organiser of the protests Leymah Gbowee reflects back on the horror of women of living in a country where rape is used as a tool of war; and how the women’s non-violent protest forced change and Liberia ended up with Africa’s first woman president.

The film also reveals the shocking extent of abuses in some countries and conflict zones and asks what Western politicians should – and should not - do to promote women’s rights and equality.

And as the US waits to hear if Hillary Clinton will make a second attempt at the US presidency, the film will assess how much progress has been made since Clinton's speech and why there's been a backlash in some areas.

In Eat to Live Forever with Giles Coren, the food critic takes up three extreme diet regimes in a bid to push the very limits of life expectancy. Giles's search to find a diet which might extend his life comes after his great-grandfather lived to the grand old age of 93. His grandfather passed away aged 76 and his father Alan died aged 69. The Coren men are bucking the global trend of living longer so Giles, now in his mid-forties, wants to find out what he can do to avoid a premature death.

In this witty, entertaining and informative documentary, Giles investigates how not to die young with the help of some extreme regimes. He meets people from around the world whose pursuit of longevity is an obsession that dominates every aspect of their lives. It won't be an easy ride for Giles - as a food critic who has eaten in some of the world's finest restaurants, he'll have to make sacrifices. He meets ardent devotees of extreme food regimes, but how much suffering will be involved, and can any of these extreme regimes actually extend Giles's life?

He undertakes the calorie-restriction diet, meeting followers of this near-starvation regime, some of whom aim to live to 150. He then takes up the Palaeo diet, aka the Stone Age diet, which consists only of foods hunted, fished or gathered by our Palaeolithic ancestors. Giles ends his journey with a regime consisting of almost 100 per cent fruit, the aptly named fruitarian diet.

Throughout the process, Giles's health is monitored by his doctor, who helps Giles assess the impact these unusual regimes are having on his body.

Can Giles be persuaded to change his ways by the well-being and enthusiasm of the people he meets? Can he hack the strict self-imposed rules under which they live? Will he discover the secret to a longer life? Or will he decide that the pleasures of a short and happy life matter more to him than living to a ripe old age?

Dina Torkia has a huge following for her vlog about Muslim fashion and now she is heading to Indonesia for the finals of an international Muslim beauty pageant, World Muslimah. But Dina soon discovers it isn't just a pageant - it's a two-week boot camp where contestants have to prove their credentials as a good Muslim role model. It's a testing and often hilarious journey which pushes Dina to the limit.

Eleven years ago Angela Samata was an ordinary mother of two living in Birkenhead. Then her partner Mark took his own life. In this film, Angela goes on a journey around Britain to meet others who have suffered a similar loss and explores why, when suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK, we are still so afraid of talking about it.

Documentary celebrating the male artists whose vocal stylings have played an instrumental role in the soul genre from the 60s to the 00s. Featuring footage of Brenton Wood performing Gimme Little Sign and Curtis Mayfield singing Keep On Keeping On, as well as appearances by Billy Preston, Bill Withers, Billy Ocean, Alexander O'Neal, Bobby Womack and Barry White.
They’re mainly performances from Top of the Pops, The Old Grey Whistle Test and Jools Holland, so Al Green rubs shoulders with R Kelly, Luther Vandross, Bill Withers and the Commodores. It’s perfect late-night viewing. Boogie the evening away or just slump on the sofa, close your eyes and, as Dobie Gray says, drift away.

Gabby Logan celebrates rugby's Six Nations Greatest Moments with classic archive footage and untold stories from rugby legends Jonny Wilkinson, Brian O'Driscoll, the Hastings Brothers (Gavin and Scott), Bill Beaumont, Sir Clive Woodward, Will Carling, Matt Dawson, Thomas Castaignede, Serge Betsen, Gareth Edwards, Jonathan Davies, Keith Wood and Martin Johnson.
There are also fun anecdotes from famous rugby fans including Dermot O'Leary, Sir Terry Wogan, Alex Jones and Katherine Jenkins, capturing the uniqueness and magic of this event that is the envy of world rugby.

Cuts to public spending mean there are far fewer police on the streets than before, and the public's obsession with security is on the rise. Over 7000 private security firms in the UK are stepping in to fill the gap - and business is booming. People are terrified by threats - some real, some imagined - and are willing to pay big bucks for everything from bodyguards to cutting-edge security equipment. Using a mix of CCTV footage, point-of-view narratives from security personnel and moving testimonies from victims, Call Security gets to grips with one of modern society's fastest-growing industries.

Of all the wonders of the human body, there's one more mysterious than any other. Blood: five precious litres that keep us alive. Yet how much do we really know about this sticky red substance and its mysterious, life-giving force?
Michael Mosley gives up a fifth of his own blood to perform six bold experiments. From starving it of oxygen to injecting it with snake venom, Michael reveals the extraordinary abilities of blood to adapt and keep us alive. Using specialist photography, the programme reveals the beauty in a single drop. Michael even discovers how it tastes when, in a television first, he prepares a black pudding with his own blood.
Down the ages, our understanding of blood has been as much myth as science, but Michael reveals there might be truth in the old vampire legends, as he meets one of the scientists behind the latest research that shows young blood might be able to reverse the ageing process - the holy grail of modern medicine.

Professor Joanna Bourke charts how, over the past five centuries, dentistry has been transformed from a backstreet horror show into a gleaming modern science.

During her journey into dentistry's past, Joanna uncovers how a trip to the dentist's in medieval England could mean much more than a haircut, reveals how a First World War general's toothache would transform British oral surgery, and discovers the strange story of how the teeth of soldiers killed at Waterloo ended up in the mouths of London's rich.

Twenty-five years after the biggest riot in British penal history, this film brings together the ringleaders of the trouble with the prison guards they battled with over three weeks of anarchy that brought Strangeways to its knees.

For the first time, these events are told through unparalleled access to the people at the heart of the riot, including the governor Brendan O'Friel who was faced with the task of trying to regain control of his prison.

Former prisoners describe the explosion of violence that erupted on April 1st 1990, when 1,600 angry inmates escaped from their cells and ran amok through the prison. Many were seeking revenge and reform for what they saw as years of suffering under an archaic and sometimes brutal regime in the overcrowded Victorian prison.

In the bloody mayhem that followed, prison officers describe fearing for their lives as they were driven out of the building, leaving prisoners to settle scores and hunt down sex offenders, showing no mercy whilst the prison burned around them.

Candid testimony from ex-inmates, prison officers and the governor himself creates a compelling story of the struggle for power between the authorities and the hardcore prisoners who ultimately took their protest onto the prison roof. The stand-off that followed is documented until the final moments, when the siege was ended in a dramatic take-down in front of rolling news cameras.

For 60 years Brits have flocked to the Costa del Sol. Since the launch of package holidays, it has guaranteed us sun, sea and sausage sandwiches. Up to a million Brits moved to Spain for a better life, but after a huge financial crisis, crippling austerity and plummeting property prices, the dream may be over. Figures suggest that 90 thousand Brits resident in Spain left in the last year alone.

In this film, director Matt Rudge travels the coast to meet some of the last Brits standing: British business owners struggling to turn a profit, pensioners trapped in negative equity and reliant on the Spanish healthcare system, and young British migrant workers employed in Spanish bars and nightclubs. He meets some ex-pats determined to remain no matter what, and others who are resigned to returning to the UK.

But beneath the surface there are simmering tensions between the Spanish public and British immigrants. It seems the UK is far from the only country debating immigration at times of austerity, but in Spain it's the Brits who are the immigrants.

So is the British love affair with the Costa del Sol over?

Simon Russell Beale travels to Italy to explore the story of the notorious Duke of Mantua and his long-suffering court composer Claudio Monteverdi during the turbulent times of the late Italian Renaissance. Out of the volatile relationship between the duke and the composer came Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, a major turning point in western music. The Sixteen, led by Harry Christophers, explore some of the radical and beautiful choral music in this dramatic composition.

When gunmen shot dead 12 people in the attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine, the hashtag 'Je Suis Charlie' seemed to unify France. But for many young Muslims it was a symbol of their growing alienation from mainstream French society, where the right-wing Front Nationale are now the leading party for the under-35s.

British journalist and comedian Shaista Aziz travels to our nearest neighbour to find out why the country has become so divided. As France reels from attacks carried out by French Muslim extremists, she meets the ordinary young Muslims who feel rejected by their country, with some even hiding their Muslim identity to get work.

Shaista confronts the far-right youth organisations who believe foreigners should be repatriated. In a rare interview, she speaks to Dieudonne, the controversial comedian who talks about what he calls the double standards over free speech that exist in France today.

Showing as part of the BBC Wales Real Valleys season. Kim Howells celebrates 250 years of art in the Valleys, looking at how the place became a magnet for artists drawn by its natural splendour and the spectacle of the industries that grew up there. Former MP and Labour arts minister Kim Howells looks at how the south Wales valleys have been portrayed by artists from the end of the 18th century to the present day. He begins with JMW Turner who visited the Vale of Neath in the 1790s to paint the spectacular waterfalls, but soon discovers that it was the drama of industry that attracted the next generation of painters. By the 20th century artists became more concerned with social issues, showing the despair brought on by the Great Depression. But after the Second World War the mood changed and painters reflected the post-war optimism. Finally, Kim looks at the current generation of artists, including Valerie Ganz and David Carpanini, who portray the after-effects of industry and the natural beauty that's returned to the Valleys.

A look at the career of Nancy Astor, the first woman to take her seat in Parliament.

Showing as part of the BBC Wales Real Valleys season. For over a hundred years the south Wales valleys have been producing boxing champions. This documentary looks back at some of the boxers who made it to the top and follows Liam Williams - a professional boxer from Clydach Vale - as he prepares for his first title fight.

This year, every motorist will spend several days worth of time sitting in traffic jams caused by roadworks. Thousands more will feel their wheels walloping through potholes which occasionally damage cars. In this film we meet the men whose job it is to control the carnage.

In Leeds alone, there are 1,800 miles of roads with 29,000 sets of roadworks a year. Two-and-a-half billion miles are driven on the city's roads every year, contributing to 30,000 potholes a year.

Dealing with this are men like Pat Griffin, who has worked for Leeds City Council Highways Department for 22 years. In this time, the department will have patched over half- a-million potholes. You'd think Pat would be sick of the sight of them. Not a bit of it: 'I've got a passion for it,' he says. 'I'm proud. We're on the front line and what we do make a difference.'

Neil Carpenter has been a utilities inspector at Leeds highways for 11 years, his department inspecting over one hundred thousand utilities digs in that time. His job involves checking that the utilities digging up our roads have permits for their work and that they're not overstaying their welcome. It's a permanent cat and mouse utilities versus inspectors game on the city's streets.

Roadworks and potholes are a favourite national moan, and in this film we hear the exasperated voice of motorists forever stuck at red lights - and we hear from the road crews on whom they frequently vent their ire.

Biggest Band Break Ups and Make Ups
Mark Radcliffe presents a look at the highs and lows of band life - the creative tension that produces great music and the pressures that come with success and fame, and pull most bands apart. Radcliffe lifts the lid on the main reasons why bands break up and the secrets of bands that manage to stay together.

The super-rich are maximizing property value in the heart of London as never before. But they're not building up, they're digging down, creating mega-basements or 'iceberg homes' - nicknamed because there's more square footage under the ground than above. Over the last ten years an estimated 2000 new basements have been dug in central London. Into these multi-level subterranean structures owners are building anything from cinemas, swimming pools, beauty parlours, squash courts, wine cellars and servants' quarters. Some take as long as three years to complete. As well as the noise of the digging, fleets of concrete mixers and lorries taking away the dug soil service the sites. So life for neighbours in some of London's poshest addresses has been hell.

As the Royal Borough of Kensington Council responds to angry residents and tries to regulate the number of mega-basements and the disruption they cause, this BBC film goes behind the hoardings to look inside the extraordinary structures and talk to builders, owners and irate neighbours to tell the story of the conflict that has gripped the millionaires and gold-paved streets of London's smartest postcodes.

Professor Alice Roberts discovers which are Britain's most popular fresh foods - and uses the latest science to uncover the surprising health benefits of our favourite foods.

Last year in Britain we spent over £84 billion on food. With each beep of the till, every item of food we buy is recorded and scrutinised. It produces an extraordinary shopping list - what we're buying most of and spending the most money on. From three billion litres of milk a year to 730 million kilos of bananas, from 520 million kilos of chicken to 1.34 billion kilos of potatoes - the BBC has gained access to the latest information about the fresh foods we load into our supermarket trolleys.

But what do we actually know about these favourite foods? How good are they for us, and are we getting the best from them - could they actually make us feel and look better? Professor Alice Roberts travels across the country to track down the very latest scientific information, revealing the definitive guide to the foods we love.

Great pop records are the soundtrack to our lives and that is why number one hits hold a totemic place in our culture. This film goes in search of what it takes to get a number one hit single, uncovering how people have done it, and the effect it had on their lives. As the exploration moves through the decades the goal is to trace the various routes that lead to the top of the singles chart, and discover the role played by art, science, chance and manipulation in reaching the pinnacle of pop.

More than sixty young British women have travelled to join the so-called Islamic State in Syria, lured by a combination of slick marketing, social media and religious fervour. With access to the friends and family of the some of the girls, Britain's Jihadi Brides reveals how the sophisticated recruiting tactics of IS have shattered so many lives.

An intimate portrait of Sir James Galway, regarded by many as the finest flautist of his generation. The programme charts his remarkable rise to the top of the classical music world from humble beginnings with a Belfast flute band, and is given unique access to Galway at home and on tour. Galway was born in Belfast at the outbreak of the Second World War and established himself performing with the top London orchestras in the 1960s before becoming first flute with the Berlin Philharmonic. In the mid-70s he took the unusual step of leaving to launch a solo career and became a household name with the release of his instrumental version of John Denver's Annie's Song. He has sold more than 30 million albums and at the age of 75 continues to tour the world performing to packed houses and giving masterclasses to the next generation of world-class flute players. Galway speaks frankly about his life and career and puts his success down to hard work and daily practice. The documentary captures Galway backstage, in rehearsal and performing, and at his home overlooking Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, with his wife and fellow flautist, Jeanne. Narrated by Jeremy Irons and contributors include broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, Riverdance composer Bill Whelan and the conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin.

Professor Alice Roberts and archaeologist Matt Williams present the highlights from this year's archaeology in Ireland. There is new evidence and a new theory to explain the amazing phenomenon of Ireland's perfectly preserved Iron Age bog bodies. Could these men really have been kings, murdered when their reigns failed? A dig at the iconic Dunluce Castle opens up the controversial Plantation of Ulster. A disagreement pits experts against local knowledge as the hunt is on for the location of the Battle of Ford of the Biscuits from the Elizabethan Nine Years' War - with unexpected results. A burial ground yields clues to a Bronze Age invasion of Ireland, a period when it became known as Europe's Eldorado. An astonishing lough yields perfectly preserved boats from Bronze, Iron and Viking Ages. The burial ground of the prison known as Ireland's Alcatraz offers up unexpected evidence of kindness among the inmates. Plus amazing plunder from the Spanish Armada, from Viking raiders and from Ireland's age of heroes, all curated from the Ulster Museum in Belfast.

Springwatch returns for an Easter Special, showcasing the best of British wildlife just as the countryside is bursting into colour and life. With the breeding season getting underway, presenters Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan hope for Easter eggs at the mainland's largest seabird colony. Martin Hughes-Games is in Suffolk with seasonal news from the current home of Springwatch, and Simon King is back on the remote Scottish island of Islay, discovering the origin of the Easter Bunny.

Rock legend and tour bus aficionado Rick Wakeman takes us on a time-travelling trip through the decades in this first-hand account of rockers on the road from the late 1950s to the 80s and beyond.
It's an often bumpy and sometimes sleepless ride down the A roads and motorways of the UK during the golden age of rock 'n' roll touring - a secret history of transport cafes, transit vans, B&Bs, sleepless roadies and of loved ones left at home or, on one occasion, by the roadside. And it's also a secret history of audiences both good and bad, and the gigs themselves - from the early variety package to the head clubs, the stadiums and the pubs.
This is life in the British fast lane as told by Rick and the bands themselves, a film about the very lifeblood of the rock 'n' roll wagon train. With members of Dr Feelgood, Suzi Quatro, the Shadows, the Pretty Things, Fairport Convention, Happy Mondays, Aswad, Girlschool, the Damned and many more.

Paula Radcliffe: The Marathon and Me
Marathon world-record holder Paula Radcliffe looks back on her extraordinary career on the eve of her swansong appearance at the 2015 London Marathon.
In a revealing set of interviews with Olympic gold medallist and BBC athletics pundit Denise Lewis, Radcliffe discusses the highs and lows of 20 years at the top of her sport, the future, and the importance of family life in her success.
The three-time London Marathon winner also talks about overcoming her battle with serious injury in order to race the 26.2 miles on the famous streets of the capital for the final time.

'My father shook up the establishment', claims Rupert Murdoch in this hour-long special that tells the true story behind the Gallipoli letter written in September 1915 by a young Australian journalist - Keith Murdoch.
According to journalistic legend, Keith Murdoch's letter toppled a general, shook a government and ended the bloodbath that was Gallipoli, one of the most infamous calamities of World War I. But the truth is far more complex.
With interviews and testimony from Rupert Murdoch, Sir Max Hastings, Sir Hew Strachan and other experts, plus dramatic reconstructions based on Keith Murdoch's own writings, the documentary tells the story of a young, ambitious journalist who visits the killing fields of Gallipoli and becomes embroiled in a scheme to evade the military censor. But when top-brass generals, cabinet ministers and press barons get involved, the scene is set for a political struggle in which reputations are destroyed, careers are made and the foundations for a new journalistic empire are laid.

It's one of the most audacious diamond heists in British history: despite CCTV, alarms and security guards, a six-man gang spent the Easter weekend breaking into a vault in London's Hatton Garden, escaping with the contents of safe-deposit boxes estimated to be worth millions. But how did they get away with it? Declan Lawn takes a journey into Britain's criminal underworld in search of the secrets behind the job - the creation of the team, the choice of target, the execution of the robbery and the escape plan. Speaking to victims of the crime, he asks what was inside the boxes. As the search for the perpetrators intensifies, how could they dispose of the stolen property?

For Democracy Day, which commemorates the 750th anniversary of the earliest Parliament in Britain, Mark D'Arcy presents a short history of the De Montfort Parliament.

When women were battling to win the vote, Parliament was on the front line. Rosalyn Ball looks back at the Suffragettes' campaign.

Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford climb on board Britain's trains to find out whether they offer value for money. On the trail of the £8 billion of fares and £4 billion of public money that go into the nation's trains each year, they discover a rail system that is struggling to contend with outdated infrastructure and more passengers than at any time in living memory.

Twenty years on from privatisation, Nick and Margaret are in for a bumpy ride as they meet irate commuters, polished train operating company bosses and the head of Network Rail. They unearth some mind-boggling bureaucracy and infuriating inefficiency, but also ask if there are signs of hope that the railway may be getting back on track.

Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman goes behind the scenes at the National Gallery in a journey to the heart of a museum inhabited by masterpieces of Western art from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.

The sensational discovery of a lost papyrus containing the words to songs unheard for 1700 years sends Margaret on a journey of exploration.

From the fragmentary documents, ruined temple architecture and surviving oriental jewellery, the programme conjures the real world of the woman, whose erotic writings gave us the words 'sapphic' and 'lesbian', after the island of Lesbos the place of her birth.

A two-hour, real-time canal boat journey down one of Britain's most historic waterways, the Kennet and Avon Canal, from Top Lock in Bath to the Dundas Aqueduct. Using an uninterrupted single shot, the film is a rich and absorbing antidote to the frenetic pace and white noise of modern life.

Taking in the images and sounds of the British countryside, underpinned by the natural soundscape of water lapping, surrounding birdsong and the noise of the chugging engine, this is a chance to spot wildlife and glimpse life on the towpath while being lulled by the comforting rhythm of a bygone era.

Along the journey, graphics and archive stills embedded into the passing landscape deliver salient facts about the canal and its social history.

The birdsong of sunrise in all its uninterrupted glory, free from the voiceover and music of traditional television.

With the first glimmers of sunlight, the birds of Britain's woodland, heathland and parkland burst into song. This is an opportunity to sit back and enjoy a portrait of three very different habitats and the natural splendour of their distinctive chorus.

The Duke of Wellington was the most famous Briton of the first half of the 19th century. His victory over Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 altered the course of history. The hero of Waterloo became a towering figure in British history for both his achievements and for embodying our notions of Britishness - the stiff upper lip, unfussy straightforwardness and incorruptibility in office - he was the Iron Duke.

This drama documentary looks behind the iron mask to focus on the intriguing complexities of the Duke of Wellington - his character, personality and relationships, told through his own words and the words of those who knew him best. General, politician, lover, outsider - the series discovers that the hero of Waterloo was far more complex than his public image.

Drawing on his own vast private correspondence, as well as the diaries and memoirs of those around him, this biographical series uses dramatic reconstruction to create an intimate portrait of the Duke of Wellington, played by Richard E Grant (Withnail and I, The Iron Lady, Doctor Who).

Following the SNP's landslide in the general election across Scotland, Sarah Smith charts the party's extraordinary rise. From their humble beginnings as a fringe party in 1934 to their success today, this programme asks, how did they do it and what does the future hold?

This programme is based on a film entitled Divided By Race - United in War and Peace, produced by The-Latest.com.
During the Second World War, thousands of men and women from the Caribbean colonies volunteered to come to Britain to join the fight against Hitler. They risked their lives for King and Empire, but their contribution has largely been forgotten.
In this programme, some of the last surviving Caribbean veterans tell their extraordinary wartime stories: from torpedo attacks by German U-boats and the RAF's blanket bombing of Germany to the culture shock of Britain's freezing winters and war-torn landscapes. This brave sacrifice confronted the pioneers from the Caribbean with a lifelong challenge - to be treated as equals by the British government and the British people.
In testimony full of wit and charm, the veterans candidly reveal their experiences as some of the only black people in wartime Britain. They remember encounters with a curious British public and confrontation with the prejudices of white American GIs stationed in Britain.
After the war, many veterans returned to the Caribbean where they discovered jobs were scarce. Some came back to Britain to help rebuild its cities. They settled down with jobs and homes, got married and began to integrate their rich heritage into British culture. Now mostly in their 80s and 90s - the oldest is 104 - these pioneers from the Caribbean have helped transform Britain and created an enduring multicultural legacy.
With vivid first-hand testimony, observational documentary and rare archive footage, the programme gives a unique perspective on the Second World War and the history of 20th-century Britain.