Season 2021 2021

TV-PG

Comedian Sophie Duker, science nerd Rick Edwards and quantum physicist Dr Michael Brooks dissect the science behind Netflix’s multi award-winning series Stranger Things. The Science(ish) gang take an entertaining deep dive into the science behind the sci-fi horror hit, picking apart the nanoscience from the nonsense. Secret government experiments, psychic powers and interdimensional monsters are all brought under the microscope for a reality check.

Using a combination of expert witnesses, guest contributors and archive clips, Rick is determined to prove to a sceptical Sophie and Dr Michael that the work of science fiction is actually based on plausible science fact. From seeing the person who believes they are the real-life Stranger Things character Eleven to uncovering a monster dog that paved the way for human organ transplants, the three will have to decide if the science of Stranger Things is legit or just science-ish.

Historian Lucy Worsley goes behind closed doors at three treasure-filled royal palaces to discover how each building has shaped a monarchy and a nation. With exclusive access to the palaces' most secret places, she uncovers the dramatic events that changed the course of British history, from might and intimidation at the Tower of London and the rise and fall of the absolute monarchy at Hampton Court to the modern face of royalty at Kensington Palace.

For five months, young protesters in Thailand have been challenging a government backed by the formidable power of the armed forces and the monarchy. For the first time, a mass movement is openly calling for reform of the monarchy, shattering a taboo surrounding the royal institution's near-sacred status.

Influenced by last year's protests in Hong Kong, young Thais have used social media and drawn on popular culture to outwit the efforts of the Thai police to shut their movement down. An unpopular government has so far been reluctant to use harsh measures against them. The monarchy has lost much of the reverence it enjoyed under the long reign of King Bhumibol, who died four years ago. His less-popular son, King Vajiralongkorn, has alarmed many Thais by accumulating even more power and living overseas. But he is now back in Thailand, meeting Thai royalists and encouraging them to challenge the student-led protests with demonstrations of loyalty. The stage is set for a dangerous confrontation between these two sides.

BBC Arabic’s Nawal al Maghafi investigates how both sides of the divided nation of Yemen have failed to protect their citizens from the pandemic.

Millions of American evangelicals are praying for the state of Israel. Among them are the Binghams, a dynasty of Kentucky pastors, and their evangelical congregants in an impoverished coal mining town. They donate sacrificially to Israel’s foremost philanthropic organisation, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, because they fervently believe the Jews are crucial to Jesus’s return.

This film traces this unusual relationship, from rural Kentucky to the halls of government in Washington, through the moving of the American Embassy in Jerusalem to the annexation plan for the West Bank.

With unparalleled access, the film exposes a stunning backstory of the Trump and Netanyahu administrations, where financial, political and messianic motivations intersect with the apocalyptic world-view that is insistently reshaping American foreign policy toward Israel and the Middle East.

Britain today is a tough place to be disabled. This film reveals the abuse and aggression faced by disabled people in everyday life, from verbal name-calling to violent physical attacks. Made by disabled filmmaker Richard Butchins and featuring a wide range of testimony from survivors themselves, it asks why this happens.

For more than a century, one group of people in Britain has been shut out of society, denied basic human rights and treated with fear and prejudice.

Now, in this shocking, moving film, writer, actor and presenter Cerrie Burnell is going to uncover the hidden story of how disabled people fought back – and won their freedom.

Cerrie was born without the lower part of her right arm. As a presenter on CBeebies, Cerrie was astonished to learn that some viewers thought her appearance would scare watching children. Now, she wants to find out where these attitudes to disabled people come from and why they persist today.

She discovers how our modern attitudes to disabled people were first formed in the workhouses of Victorian Britain, uncovers the original records of an institution created to segregate disabled people and stop them having children, and traces the hidden lives of those confined to institutions for their whole lives.

Cerrie hears astonishing stories of heartbreak and cruelty. But she also meets some pioneers who changed the lives of disabled people forever. John Evans was one of the very first to move from a residential home into a one of his own, and Alia Hassan brought the streets of London to a standstill as part of a campaign fighting for disabled people to be allowed to get on a bus.

Ultimately Cerrie discovers that although much has changed for disabled people in Britain today, the battle is not yet won.

Silenced is a story of huge social change that many of us still don’t know about, told through the hidden lives of disabled people.

Merlin Holland tells the story of the epic court clash at the Old Bailey in 1895 between his grandfather, Oscar Wilde, and Edward Carson. Does Carson deserve his reputation as the man who destroyed Oscar Wilde?

Also featuring Gyles Brandreth and actors Simon Callow and Rupert Everett.

It was once the richest democracy in Latin America, but under President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has been in an economic tailspin. Even so, amidst an opposition boycott and claims of vote-rigging, recent elections have consolidated his grip on power. And as Katy Watson reports, the coronavirus pandemic has been another nail in the coffin for an economy already on its knees.

While undergoing treatment himself, comedian Rhod Gilbert goes on a frank, revealing, and frequently funny journey into the world of male infertility.

A deeply personal film following Katie Price and her disabled son Harvey in a crucial year of his life, as he turns 18 and becomes an adult.

Terry Abraham films a year in the life of Helvellyn in the Lake District, featuring an exhilarating RAF fighter plane flight through its stunning and much-loved landscape.

Neil Hannon looks back on his career with The Divine Comedy in this eccentric documentary, scripted by Hannon himself.

He invites us into his ‘mind palace’, the place inside his head where his career lives, populated with props and costumes, inspirations and muses, to remind both himself and us how it all began.

John Z DeLorean’s extraordinary and doomed attempt to build the sports car of the future in 1980s Northern Ireland is the stuff of legend. A buccaneering American entrepreneur, DeLorean had film star looks, a famous fashion model as a wife and an enormous ego that drove him to rival the giants of the US car industry.

Millions of pounds of British tax-payers money later, an unprecedented social experiment where Catholics and Protestants worked side by side in relative harmony in West Belfast ends in a trail of corporate waste, greed, fraud and, incredibly, an FBI cocaine-trafficking sting.

Using rare and unseen footage filmed by Oscar winning directors DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, and through colourful news archive documenting his life and career, this is the first in-depth psychological profile of DeLorean, a man who rose from the ghettos of Detroit to build his American dream in war-torn Belfast. A dream that quickly went up in smoke.

Rita Duffy is one of Northern Ireland’s best known visual artists with an instantly recognisable style which can be seen in her many paintings. Over four decades, her work has explored the world around her and has dealt with difficult subject matter such as the Troubles, the political situation in Northern Ireland and the role of women in our society. Now, her new work, Anatomy of Hope, looks at the current Covid-19 pandemic.

Throughout, Rita has avoided some of the self-regarding tendencies of the art world and tried to engage with her audience in as direct a way as possible, often by going out into communities and involving ordinary people in her projects.

This documentary tells the story of her life and work through an interview with the artist herself, as well as archive of her at work dating back to the mid-1980s. It traces a timeline from Rita’s childhood in Belfast to the present day by reviewing key pieces of her output, which include early works such as her Siege paintings, which depict a divided society, to her Drawing the Blinds portraits at the Divis Flats in Belfast, and her proposal to tow an iceberg to Belfast to explore the legacy of the Troubles.

Can you use craft to help make the world a better place, one stitch at a time? Writer, comedian and art lover Jenny Eclair meets people doing extraordinary things with knitting, cross-stitch, banners and felt to change hearts and minds.

Hearing stories from craftivists around the UK and beyond, Jenny visits Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire to see how miniature knickers are discreetly placed around the town to encourage screening for cervical cancer, and learns how felt 'graffiti' has a wellbeing message for visitors to a London park.

From banners at Liverpool Football Club's Anfield Stadium to a huge memorial quilt remembering those who lost their lives to Aids, the initiatives all have one thing in common: a painstaking, thoughtful and beautiful way to get heard.

An exploration of the life and poetry of Medbh McGuckian, brought to life through recitals and performances as she remembers the poems that defined her life and career.

When Medbh McGuckian won the National Poetry Prize in 1979 with her poem The Flitting, she was thrust onto the world stage as a woman who could do battle in a predominantly male poetry scene. More importantly, it gave her the confidence to emerge from the shadow of her mentor, Seamus Heaney, and take her place beside a host of highly decorated contemporaries like Ciaran Carson, Paul Muldoon and Frank Ormsby.

Medbh’s poetry is different. It is highly personal. The scars of her life seep through her pages. While others buried their noses in books looking for inspiration, Medbh wrote of her struggles with childbirth and the darkness of a life marked by mental illness. That darkness was mirrored by the backdrop of the Northern Irish troubles, and while not always evident in her poetry, it is omnipresent.

Circling a Fox takes Matthew Zajac’s multi-award-winning play about his father’s life and turns it into a genre-bending documentary film that challenges received notions of personal and national identity. It is a deeply personal story, taking us on a journey from war-torn Poland and Ukraine to the Highlands of Scotland and then back again. Blending documentary, theatre and poetic drama-reconstruction, Circling a Fox tells the story of Matthew's quest to seek the truth about his father’s past and his efforts to use theatre to reach out to a family he never knew he had.

Professor Alice Roberts follows a decade-long historical quest to reveal a hidden secret of the famous bluestones of Stonehenge.
Using cutting-edge research, a dedicated team of archaeologists led by Professor Mike Parker Pearson have painstakingly compiled evidence to fill in a 400-year gap in our knowledge of the bluestones, and to show that the original stones of Britain’s most iconic monument had a previous life.
Alice joins Mike as they put together the final pieces of the puzzle, not just revealing where the stones came from, how they were moved from Wales to England or even who dragged them all the way, but also solving one of the toughest challenges that archaeologists face.

For many women, working in the music industry is a dream come true - but behind the glamour there lies a dark secret. From inappropriate messages and unwanted sexual advances to violence and rape, reporter Tamanna Rahman explores why women in music have remained silent for so long.

In an exclusive interview, Hana, former girlfriend of hotly tipped rapper Octavian, reveals why she decided to go public on social media with claims of physical abuse at his hands. Her Instagram post led, in November last year, to the artist and his long-awaited debut album being cancelled by his record label, Black Butter, part of Sony Music. Tamanna explores why Hana felt she had to go public with her allegations.

Questions are also asked about the relationship between Island Records, a subsidiary of Universal, and one of music’s most dangerous men, Solo 45. Today the grime star is in jail for 30 years for raping and torturing women. But before Island handed him a deal, he served six months in prison in Cyprus for domestic violence. Was this taken into consideration before the label invested in his music?

Lucy Worsley explores the lives of six real people who lived, worked and volunteered during the Blitz, highlighting the government’s reliance on ordinary people.

When Zara McDermott left Love Island in 2018, she was told that naked photos of her were circulating worldwide. Now she’s looking for answers.

At the age of 23, actor David Harewood had a psychotic breakdown, a condition he later discovered was far more likely to affect black men. After the shocking news broke that black, Asian and minority ethnic patients were dying in disproportionate numbers from Covid-19, David felt compelled to discover the reasons why.

David starts his journey in Brent, north west London. During the first wave of the pandemic, the borough had the highest Covid-19 mortality rate in the country. It is also one of the UK's most diverse areas, where nearly 65 per cent of the local population are black, Asian or from other minority ethnic groups.

He visits Dr Tariq Husain, head of the Intensive Care Unit at the nearby Northwick Park Hospital, who describes the tidal wave of cases that overwhelmed their capacity, five times more than the usual rates of admissions, and the fact that people from minority communities seemed to be the hardest hit.

Was this just an isolated incident? To find out, David visits Dr Guddi Singh, a paediatric doctor and health expert, who reveals that what happened in Brent is mirrored across the country. Staggeringly, as a black man, David is nearly three times more likely to die from Covid-19. What is it about being black that puts David at such an increased risk? Dr Singh explains that a big risk factor is the job that you do. Key workers risk their lives, exposing themselves to the virus as they keep the country running.

Yet people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are more likely to do these jobs. David visits Tamira, whose father was one of the first members of NHS staff to die from Covid-19. She believes not enough was done to protect him at work. A heart-wrenching but all too common story.

But why do so many people from minority communities do these frontline jobs? David visits his sister Sandra in Birmingham, where they both grew up. They discuss their parents’ experiences as new migrants to the UK in the 50s, and how your skin

To mark 100 years since the birth of comedy legend Tommy Cooper, Sir Lenny Henry - one of Tommy’s biggest fans - takes a look back through the BBC’s archives and shares some of the great man’s finest and funniest moments. This collection features some of Cooper’s most famous routines, and shows that his reputation for terrible tricks that inevitably went wrong was all based on an act.He was actually a master magician, perfectly suited to television’s golden age.

Actor and comedian John Thomson looks back at the life and work of his friend and comedy colleague, the late and greatly missed Caroline Aherne. From rarely seen early routines from Caroline’s days on the Manchester stand-up circuit, through to some favourite moments from The Fast Show, Mrs Merton and The Royle Family, John is our guide as we wallow in a special selection of clips, characters and magic moments. To misquote Mrs Merton’s famous line to Debbie McGee – this is a collection that reveals exactly what it was that first attracted us to one of British television’s best-loved writers and performers.

BBC producer Felicity Baker has a stammer that she has spent her whole life trying to hide. She struggles to say her own name. Now she is stepping out in front of the camera for the first time to talk about what it is like to live with the condition - and she soon finds she is not alone. She meets a rugby player who blames his stammer for his aggressive behaviour on the pitch, a rapper who found music stopped him stammering and the comedy star Michael Palin, whose father stammered but never ever spoke about it.

At the start of 2020, BBC radio 1 gave Arlo Parks a camera, to capture an exciting new artist making their debut album. No one could have predicted how the story would unfold.

Billie Holiday, known one of the greatest voices of all time as well as a woman of breathtaking talent and global popularity, was a figure of controversy throughout her short life - a black woman in a white man’s world, a victim and a rebel. Her infamous Strange Fruit, the first protest song of the civil rights movement, earned her powerful enemies. She was also an enigma, her telling of her own life story a mix of half truths and free-form improvisations.

Then, in the late 1960s journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl set out to write the definitive biography of Billie. Over the next decade, she tracked down and tape-recorded interviews with the extraordinary characters that populated the iconic singer’s short, tumultuous life.

Raw, emotional and brutally honest, these incredible testimonies ranged from musical greats like Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett, Sylvia Syms and Count Basie to her cousin, schoolfriends, lovers, lawyers, pimps and even the FBI agents who arrested her. But Linda’s book was never finished, and the tapes remained unplayed – until now.

With unprecedented and exclusive access to Linda's astonishing 200 hours of never-before-heard interviews, this documentary showcases an American legend, capturing her depths and complexity through the voices of those who knew her best. Painstakingly restored with footage and stills colourised by one of the world's leading colour artists, it is an arresting and powerful tale of one of the greatest singers who ever lived, and of Linda Lipnack Kuehl, the woman who would sacrifice her life in trying to tell it.

Roman Kemp: Our Silent Emergency is a deeply personal and candid film following Roman as he explores the mental health and suicide crisis affecting young men in the UK. In August 2020, Roman’s life changed dramatically with the sudden and unexpected death of his best friend, radio producer Joe Lyons. This timely documentary sees Roman taking a closer look at the urgent issue of young men’s mental health, exploring why increasing numbers are taking their own lives and the reasons why so many of them never ask for help. Wanting to find some answers in a difficult time, Roman explores what can be done to encourage people to seek help, what preventative action we need to be taking, and the lasting impact mental health and suicide can have on friends and families. This is a film about Roman’s generation, young men and boys as they become adults, and how he himself could help add to a dialogue that might help those who are struggling in silence.

George McGavin and Zoe Laughlin investigate the revolutionary science finding vital renewable resources and undiscovered life in sewage.

Marking 50 years since the seminal series Dave Allen at Large, a selection of favourite monologues from across the much-loved comedian's career. Armed with his trademark props, he sits on a stool, sips his whisky and reflects on the idiocies of life, meditating on everything from the process of ageing through to the invasive tendencies of the modern telephone

An examination of the Black Power movement in the late 1960s in the UK, surveying both the individuals and the cultural forces that defined the era.

At the heart of the documentary is a series of astonishing interviews with past activists, many of whom are speaking for the first time about what it was really like to be involved in the British Black Power movement, bringing to life one of the key cultural revolutions in the history of the nation.

The monks of Mount St Bernard Abbey, a community of 25 men, more than half of whom are over 80 years old, are opening the first Trappist brewery in the UK. For their historic, countercultural lifestyle to survive, the venture must succeed.
In the meantime, as the monks reflect on spirituality, ageing and the end of life, the number of burials in the abbey graveyard continues to grow.

Exclusive access to the pop star as she balances the competing pressures of a world tour, writing a new album, launching an acting career and being a first-time mum.

Gabriel Clarke presents a profile of the World Cup-winning footballer, looking at his special relationship with Ireland after becoming the national team's manager, his complicated relationship with brother Bobby, and his final battle with dementia. Including contributions from his wife Pat and son John, alongside celebrated Irish players, musicians, writers and politicians, including Larry Mullen, Roddy Doyle, Brendan O'Carroll, Paul McGrath, Niall Quinn, Mick McCarthy, David O'Leary and Andy Townsend.

Male pattern baldness affects around half of all men by the age of 50, typically starting in their late twenties to early thirties. It can be a hugely traumatic life event because most men refuse to talk about it. The urge to ‘man up’ and the fear of being seen as vain or vulnerable means a lot of guys simply suffer in silence.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Now help is at hand in the Barbershop for Bald Men. We meet Bryan, Matty and Jason. Bryan started losing his hair in his late twenties and believes it has robbed him of the confidence to start dating. Matty started losing his when he was just 18 and went on to have a failed hair transplant a few years later. Jason, who also happens to a barber, despairs at spending his days surrounded by mirrors, working on the very thing he wants most. They share their stories about their hair loss before undergoing an astonishing transformation. Keris Weir, hair stylist to the stars, fits each of them with cutting-edge hair replacement systems – and the haircut they’ve been longing for.

Will they love their brand new hair or decide to finally accept that bald is beautiful?

Struggling with the loss of his sight, renowned landscape painter James Morrison attempts one last painting.

This documentary follows him as he picks up the brushes again at the age of 85, after being sidelined by a series of operations, and explores what it means to be a landscape painter. It is also the poignant and universal story of a creative mind dealing with his own mortality, and the physical frailties that catch up with all of us. Eye of the Storm intertwines Morrison’s struggle with old age, with his lively views as a much younger painter, captured in remarkable archive filmed more than 50 years ago. Pivotal moments in Morrison’s career are also brought vividly to life by Scottish animator Catriona Black.

As Morrison begins painting again, he is particularly troubled by the fact that, on doctor’s orders, he can’t paint outside. His lifelong compulsion to paint what he sees has taken him around the world, from Africa to Paris to Greenland.

The son of a shipyard pipefitter, Morrison entered the famous Glasgow School of Art in 1950. While other students embraced the overtly political and abstract art fashionable at the time, he was attracted to the landscape painters of a different era, such as Claude Lorrain, Jean-François Millet and Scotland’s own Horatio McCulloch.

Morrison’s first major subjects were the crumbling Glasgow tenements, home to thousands of working-class families soon to be relocated to the outskirts of the city. Though painted without people, Morrison’s haunting paintings are memorials to a lost way of life, and would find their place in major museums. His concern with documenting fleeting, disappearing worlds, would become a recurring feature of his work.

His work then underwent a dramatic shift when he moved to the tiny fishing village of Catterline in north east Scotland in 1959. Here, Morrison effectively established what would become a famed artists’ colony, along with painter Joan Eardley. As he views archive from the ti

Documentary observing an extraordinary family at home in Northern Ireland. The programme goes inside the world of Keith and Kristyn Getty, a modern hymn-writing duo with global success.

For decades, Iraq has been caught between the competing regional interests of the US and Iran. In the ultimate settling of scores, in 2020, the US assassinated Iran's senior commander, Qassem Soleimani, in Iran, leading to rising military tensions. But perhaps the biggest impact of Soleimani's death was on Iraqi Shias, traditionally supportive of Iran. With the heroic figurehead gone, even those with close religious and cultural ties to Iran began to question the extent of Iran's influence in their country, particularly through powerful Iran-backed Shia militia groups.

BBC Persian's Nafiseh Kohnavard has been reporting on Iraq for nearly 20 years. At a time of rising tensions between Iran and the US in Iraq, she travels through Iraq's Shia heartland to see what's changed since the death of Soleimani and finds out how some of Iran's traditional supporters in Iraq are beginning to resent Iran as much as America.

Former glamour model Jess Davies uncovers the hidden trade in photographs.

Following the announcement earlier today that His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh has died, Sophie Raworth is joined by special guests in the studio to pay tribute to The Duke’s remarkable life and legacy.

The remarkable life story of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, the man who stood beside the Queen for over 70 years. A man who conducted hundreds of royal engagements in his own right, often championing the development of young people and environmental change. Featuring interviews with those who knew him best.

As the world reflects on the remarkable life of the Duke of Edinburgh, this one hour programme remembers him in the place that mattered to him most - Windsor .

Over the course of filming for a year at the castle, we had the perfect guide - Prince Philip himself.

And what started as a personal tour turned into something much more revealing and unexpected – a journey through the life of a very modern man, a pioneer and innovator who was at the heart of the British Monarchy, and the Queen's side, for over seventy years.

In his role of Ranger he shows us around the Windsor estate, and describes what it was like when he first arrived in 1952: how he transformed the castle inside and out; how he handled the old guard; his biggest bug-bear, the tree-huggers; his successes and (very messy) failures as an ecopioneer; how he turned Windsor into a home fit for a young and growing family; what is was like following in the footsteps of his predecessor and ancestor Prince Albert; he tells us about his love of polo and the real reason he built a polo club on the grounds, and how he wrote the rules for carriage-driving- the sport he never gave up.

And he even touches on his own place in history, and his firm belief that it is for others to decide his legacy…

There is relaxed banter with the film crew, funny off-camera exchanges (which we include), but there are also serious and at times some very poignant and reflective moments.

And all this at the place he calls home-which of course will be his final resting place too.

This is the real Duke, in his own words, a unique and enduring portrait which reveals the side of a man rarely seen.

BBC One Scotland pays tribute to His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh.

The Duke of Edinburgh may have been the longest living Royal Consort in British history, carrying out thousands of official duties and supporting The Queen while walking two steps behind her - but he was also so much more.

Dan Snow follows in The Duke of Edinburgh’s footsteps uncovering the myriad ways in which he turned his personal experiences and passions into causes which benefited not just this country but the wider world. From the awards scheme which bears his name, to his ground breaking work in conservation and his championing of British design, Dan finds out more about Philip the man, the contribution he made and the substantial legacy he has left behind.

The facts of Philip’s own life unlock the key to why he was so passionate about certain causes. Dan discovers how his time at Gordonstoun, then a tiny experimental school, was pivotal for the young prince after a childhood marked by chaos and instability. Here Dan uncovers the roots of his hugely successful and ubiquitous Duke of Edinburgh awards scheme award - and finds out how his passion for sailing on the Moray Firth led him down the path of a career at sea.

Dan charts the Prince’s short but stellar naval career, meeting along the way, the man whose life he helped save during World War 11. Though a rising star his career was cut short when The Queen acceded to the throne. Now the Duke of Edinburgh, Philip used his position and influence to work for the greater good. His fascination with gadgetry and appreciation of good design led him to encourage innovation in post war Britain by establishing his own Design Awards. Dan meets a notable recipient and finds just how significant the Duke’s initiative was. This genuine enthusiasm for how things were made was complimented by a real talent for painting and photography and we learn how the Prince’s concern for the survival of species was prompted by his photographic trips to the far reaches of the globe. It was in the field of conservation that the D

Professor Margaret MacMillan delivers a Gresham College lecture looking back at the Treaty of Versailles a hundred years later. From 4 June 2019.

Nick Broomfield takes a distinctly personal look at his relationships with his humanist-pacifist father, Maurice Broomfield, a factory worker turned photographer of vivid images of postwar England.

After the sudden and unexplained death of his 19-year-old sister Lauren, Patrick is left grieving, struggling to understand how a young person could go to sleep and never wake up. Every year over 600 young and seemingly healthy people die suddenly and unexpectedly from sudden cardiac death. Lauren's death was registered as SADS, or sudden adult death syndrome, a cause of cardiac death even the experts don't completely understand.

Is ultra-processed food causing obesity in children, and could it even be addictive? Dr Chris van Tulleken investigates as he undergoes a gruelling self-experiment that even shocks the scientists.

The Psychedelic Drug Trial has exclusive access to a ground-breaking new trial at Imperial College London. The trial sees, for the first time ever under controlled conditions, a psychedelic drug tested head-to-head against a standard antidepressant as a treatment for depression.

The film follows a pioneering team of scientists and psychotherapists, led by Professor David Nutt, Dr Robin Carhart-Harris and Dr Rosalind Watts, as they compare the effects of psilocybin (the active ingredient of magic mushrooms) with an antidepressant (an SSRI called escitalopram) on a small group of participants with clinical depression. This is scientific research at its most cutting edge. With over seven million people being prescribed antidepressants each year in England alone, this drug trial is an important milestone in understanding a completely different treatment for depression.

Filmed over 16 months, this film explores both the immediate and long-term impacts of the trial on the lives of participants. It investigates whether psychedelic drugs combined with psychological support could help tackle one of the biggest medical challenges faced today and what it takes to conduct research in uncharted scientific territory.

How do psychedelic drugs measure up against the industry-standard antidepressants that have been popular since the 1990s? The empirical results of the trial are explored alongside the participants’ powerful lived experience.

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.

To celebrate the award of UK City of Culture 2021 to Coventry, local boy Mark Evans tells the full history of the classic cars made in Coventry.

This passionate retrospective runs from the industry's beginnings in 1897 through to the present day and includes interviews and archive footage detailing the stories behind the creation of classic marques such as the Daimler, the Triumph, the Riley and the Jaguar and the companies and people behind them.

More goals, more trophies, more followers; for Cristiano Ronaldo life is about being number one, about standing alone.

BBC Sport's new documentary explores how Ronaldo has overcome adversity to reach unparalleled heights and examines his journey to become the most followed person on the planet. Has he redefined what it means to be an icon in the 21st Century? And at 36, will he rest on this legacy?

The Brandywell was one of the poorest areas in Europe and home to Derry City Football Club. In the shadow of the civil rights movement and the Troubles, the club managed to keep playing - until the team bus of Ballymena United was caught up in the violence, taken away and burned. Derry City FC was banned from playing at home and eventually went out of business.

In 1984, the city needed a saviour. Tony O’Doherty was a Northern Ireland international who had played against England at Wembley. He teamed up with another international, Terry Harkin, and two other professionals Eddie Mahon and Eamonn McLaughlin, to become the Gang of Four who challenged the status quo. They made it their goal to get senior football back in their hometown.

With repeated rebuffs from the Irish League in Belfast to their requests to gain re-entry, the four lads decided to take their footballing revolution south to the League of Ireland in Dublin.

This film charts the emotional journey of how in 1985, after 13 years in the wilderness, football returned to the Brandywell. The club would go on to lift both silverware and the spirits of the city, unleashing a carnival of hope, pride and optimism.

Featuring interviews with the Gang of Four, rare archive footage and memories of the faithful supporters, the film portrays an inspirational group of people who made their dreams come true. The rollercoaster took the club and community from the depths of despair to footballing nirvana, landing a historic domestic treble in the League of Ireland. It would culminate with the arrival of football royalty with Sven-Goran Eriksson bringing his Benfica team of superstars into the heart of the Bogside for a European Cup tie.

Two of Northern Ireland’s leading journalists, Darragh MacIntyre and Sam McBride, shed new light on one of the most notorious crimes in UK-Irish history – the Northern Bank robbery.

Two families held hostage for 24 hours, two bank employees forced to rob £26.5 million. Sixteen years on, despite an international police investigation and heavily-rumoured IRA involvement, it remains unsolved.

With access to internal bank CCTV, police 999 calls, archive footage and court transcripts, Darragh and Sam piece together how the heist was carried out and explore various theories that surround it.

Through interviews with key players – in politics, policing and financial crime – they uncover what happened to main suspects in the cross-border police investigation and ask whether the robbery, inadvertently, helped the peace process.

In the 1960s, while young black adults were getting to grips with the struggle for black power and a long fightback against police abuse was starting, the majority of West Indian migrants were keeping their heads down. They were working hard and counting on providing better opportunities and education for their children. However, in a white-dominated country, where the politics were becoming increasingly racialised, there was a question of how society, and its teachers, saw these young black children.

Before having a chance to develop intellectually, they were labelled as stupid, difficult and disruptive. The paradox is that many of the new migrants to Britain were in fact highly educated. One of them was Gus John, who arrived from Trinidad as a Dominican novitiate to become a priest. Almost immediately he was contacted by some black parents worried about the schooling of their children. Together with several other educators, John quickly realised that the system was not just inept, but actually rigged against black children.

At the same time, celebrity psychologists Hans Eysenck and Arthur Jensen were propounding theories that black people were genetically less intelligent than white people. These theories infiltrated teacher training and found their way into schools. IQ tests were then based on these theories with the odds horrendously stacked against children from the West Indies.

In America, if you're black, you're five times more likely to go to prison than if you’re white. And the typical white family has eight times the wealth of the typical black family.

Fifty years on from the promise of equality and the Civil Rights Act, this documentary reveals the moments where America had the chance to become more equal and why that didn’t happen.

Through compelling interviews with those who were at the forefront of the struggle for a fair system in education, housing and criminal justice, the film reveals the key court cases, Supreme Court rulings and laws that failed to bridge the gap.

It gives us the shocking context to the anger felt by the millions of people who took to the streets during the Black Lives Matter protests. The movement was not just calling for an end to police brutality but also asking for something that had been pledged 50 years ago: racial equality.

A look back at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, to mark their 10th anniversary.

The arc of black history shares an uncanny resemblance to the plot points of classic sci-fi including ‘alien’ abduction, enslavement and rebellion. It’s this unlikely relationship that provides the inspiration for Afrofuturism, the broad cultural trend that encompasses works by Jean-Michel Basquiat to Grace Jones, Solange Knowles and Sun Ra. In this film, we meet, see and hear from artists across three continents who each, in their own way, explore the Afrofuture to look at the horrors of the black past and imagine alternative futures.

A look behind the scenes of a chaotic three days in European football, as a proposed Super League was announced and then collapsed when faced with a wall of opposition.

The story of Coventry’s new cathedral and of the times in which it was built. Designed by Basil Spence and consecrated in 1962, the original was destroyed by German bombers during World War II.

On Sunday 7th June 2020, sparked by the horrific murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, protestors marching to support the Black Lives Matter movement tore down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston and threw it in the city’s harbour.

This dramatic action in Bristol thrust the city onto the global stage and put it at the forefront of last summer's bitter culture wars.

Caught in the eye of this storm was Bristol’s mayor Marvin Rees, the first directly elected mayor of Black African heritage of a major European city.

Born and bred in Bristol and himself a descendant of enslaved people, how would he hold the city together in the face of rising tensions that threaten to explode into violent confrontation?

As we emerge into the sunlight from the long shadow of lockdown, the UEFA Euros Tournament in June is one of the world’s most highly anticipated sporting events. And, with the final on 11 July taking place on the hallowed turf of Wembley, football really is coming home this summer.

In We Are England, Krept and Konan, two of the UK’s most talented and successful rap artists, are setting out to mark what is sure to be a huge shared cultural moment by making a track to celebrate the England football team. But first they need to investigate what Englishness actually means in 2021. It’s never been a simple question for those of non-white British heritage, but it’s a question they’ll need to tackle if they are going to create an authentic track to celebrate the national squad.

Because instead of the traditional cheesy sing-along, featuring a former soap actor or long-retired left-back, Krept and Konan are going to create an anthem for our times: representing the modern diversity and forward-looking culture in which our chart-topping rap stars and the young stars of the England team are cut from the same cloth. Rap culture is the culture of young Britain, and today’s top-tier teams now move to a whole different beat than they did when the Three Lions anthem of Euros 96 had them tapping their toes in the changing rooms and their fans chanting on the terraces. The lifestyle, attitude, slang and swagger of rap culture is replicated in the national football team – itself now one of the youngest and most diverse it has ever been – and many of the country’s biggest rappers came up honing their football skills and their rap lyrics on our city streets and in the ‘cages’ of the UK’s estates, just as top footballers grew up surrounded by hip hop culture, looking up to rap stars.

So if they’re going to create a track to celebrate the pride of a new nation, it’s these stories that Krept and Konan want to tell, and this bold, aspirational culture they want to reflect. On th

In a uniquely personal journey, award-winning reporter Peter Taylor revisits the films he has made over the past 50 years to reflect on the controversial issue of a united Ireland.

The shocking story of the rise and fall of one of Instagram’s first super-influencers. By 23, Australian wellness guru Belle Gibson had cultivated an adoring global following online with the story that she had successfully treated her own terminal cancer by eating a plant-based diet and using alternative natural therapies. But there was one problem with Belle’s story: she had never had cancer.

Seen through the eyes of those who adored her and those who exposed her, this film lifts the lid on one of social media’s great mysteries: who was the real Belle Gibson – an ingenious con artist or damaged young woman trapped in a lie?

Nada Tawfik reports on the outcome of the trail of Derek Chauvin.

Judith Moritz reports on the security failings that enabled the Manchester Arena bombing.

As we emerge from a global pandemic that has turned our world upside down, David Olusoga explores the hidden history of the nurses, doctors and health workers who, for more than 70 years, have been coming to Britain from overseas to serve in the NHS.

Documentary telling the incredible true story of Scottish mercenary Peter McAleese, who was hired to kill Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in 1989. With unprecedented access to Peter and other members of his team, this is the first full account of that fateful mission and the dark consequences for those involved.

With full access to McAleese’s personal archive, as well as never-before-seen amateur footage of the operation, Killing Escobar weaves this material alongside dramatic reconstruction and interviews from McAleese and his fellow mercenaries. We also hear from one of Pablo Escobar’s bodyguards, members of America’s DEA and the security chief of the Colombian drug cartel that wanted Escobar eliminated.

The film also provides a deeply personal character study of Peter McAleese, a man trained to fight and kill, and the cost this has had on himself and his family. McAleese actively sought out war and conflict but admits that he, and those close to him, paid a costly price for his desire to seek adventure.

McAleese’s youth in postwar working class Glasgow was marked by poverty and violence and he quickly learned how to fight. Leaving Glasgow for the Parachute Regiment in 1960, Peter learned to channel his aggression into soldiering, seeing action in the SAS before fighting as a mercenary in Africa throughout the 10s and 80s.

In 1989, McAleese and his friend Dave Tomkins were hired by a Colombian drug cartel to undertake a mission to kill the world’s biggest cocaine dealer, Pablo Escobar. In Colombia, he gathered a select team of ex-Special Forces operatives and began training for a lightning raid on Escobar’s Hacienda. After 11 weeks of intense preparation, the men launched the operation which ultimately led to disaster and would have a devastating effect on McAleese and others.

Marking the ten year anniversary of the death of Amy Winehouse, her closest family and friends, including mum Janis and dad Mitch, reveal the truth about the British music icon.

Our smartphones hold our secrets - the version of ourselves we may not want to show the world. With extraordinary access to the contents of a smartphone used by three British men who left their homes to go to Syria and fight with ISIS, journalist Mobeen Azhar uncovers what happened to the three men. Mobeen tries to understand their motivations, how they became radicalised and who is ultimately responsible for their one-way journey to certain death. Using previously unseen videos, photos and screenshots from the smartphone, Mobeen explores what made these three men join an estimated 900 Britons who went out to Syria and Iraq to fight with the world’s most feared terrorist group.

While much of the media’s focus has been on the schoolgirls who went to join ISIS, a much larger number of the Britons who made this journey were young men. The three men who feature on the smartphone came from very different backgrounds, and one was a private school boy. Reaching out to the people who really knew them, Mobeen pieces together their stories of hope and delusion - a case study in how extremist ideology takes hold of a life.

Luciano Pavarotti‘s 1991 anniversary concert in Hyde Park, celebrating 30 years of his operatic career.

In November 1981, Queen arrived in Montreal following dates in Japan and their record-breaking tour of Latin America. It was to be the only concert by Queen that was ever shot on film.

Chris Packham explores his past as he walks a familiar path in the Hampshire countryside. Chris cut his teeth as a naturalist in this beautiful corner of England.

After winning gold in Rio 2016, double Olympic champion Helen Glover decided to hang up the oars and step away from rowing to start a family.

Helen had three children together with husband Steve Backshall, but the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdown brought on a change in perspective. Despite not having stepped foot in a boat since Rio, Helen decided to take a shot at a third Olympic gold.

This documentary follows Helen’s journey back into racing every step of the way, from regaining her fitness during the first lockdown in early 2020 to her selection for Team GB. It provides a powerful insight into what it takes to balance new motherhood with elite sporting performance, exploring the highs and lows of the road to Tokyo through the lens of those closest to her.

Clara Amfo meets the global music phenomenon Billie Eilish to discuss her meteoric rise to superfame in just three years, and the pressure of being a role model for millions.

Jamie O’Leary has terrible sight, and is now facing eye surgery that could potentially lead to sight loss. A television director for almost 20 years, Jamie has produced groundbreaking programmes that take a fresh look at disability, as well as making popular travelogue shows with some of the UK’s funniest talent, including Karl Pilkington, Romesh Ranganathan and Katherine Ryan.

The word 'diva' is used to describe otherworldly talent, but somewhere along the line, the meaning got polluted. Ana Matronic reclaims the word by presenting five legendary artists.

This revelatory film hears from the people who experienced the riots up close and personal, reliving events ten years on.

Daisy Maskell, the UK’s youngest ever breakfast radio host, has suffered from insomnia since childhood. For as long as she can remember, she has survived on as little as a couple of hours of sleep each night and is wide awake until the early hours of the morning. With an ever-increasing workload, running on empty is starting to take its toll, so Daisy wants to uncover the roots of her insomnia and take the first steps towards treatment.

She is not alone. According to research by the NHS, hospital admissions due to sleep disorders among young people have almost doubled over the past eight years, and the recent Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated the issue further still. In research conducted by Kings College London on a cross-section of 2,500 people across the UK, almost half of 16- to 24-year-olds stated that they were sleeping significantly fewer hours than they had been prior to lockdown, in comparison to just a third of those aged 35 and over.

Daisy meets experts and fellow sufferers to investigate why thousands of young people in the UK are struggling with sleep disorders and insomnia. Gaining tips along the way, she tries a multitude of remedies and treatments in a bid to get a better night’s sleep. We see her explore the roots of her insomnia, with revealing emotional insights into her struggles with her own mental health.

Rigs of Nigg is the story of how over 5,000 men, sought locally and from across the globe, came together to create structures previously thought to be unbuildable and to withstand elements considered unsurvivable. But the biggest impact was on Nigg and the surrounding villages. Farm work was no longer the mainstay, jobs in the Nigg yard paid four times as much and nothing would be the same again. Heady days of tough work and hard living set some up for life but also took their toll on many.

Livvy Haydock investigates UK kidnapping, discovering that one in five are now not gang on gang. Livvy tracks down some of the kidnappers and meets survivors.

Governments around the world are uncovering secret operations to expand China's influence.

Best-selling author Graeme Armstrong reveals his passion for rave, meeting some of the superstar DJs and hardcore party people who created the vibrant and little-explored world of the Scottish rave scene.

It’s 1981. Diana and Charles wed, Raiders of the Lost Ark storms the box office, and the threat of nuclear war feels increasingly real. Living in the Rhondda Valley are well-known family the Brinkworths: seven sisters and one brother raised by their mum and bus driver dad. Eldest sisters Susan, a young mum, and Christine, are busy housewives. Fearful over news Britain is to house American cruise missiles, they join a local CND group. When a 120-mile protest march from Cardiff to Greenham Common, where weapons are to be based, attracts little press attention, the pair, little sister Lesley and friends chain themselves to the railings in their town square and camp out for a week to raise awareness of the permanent women’s peace camp now at Greenham. Things escalate as the Rhondda women live at the Greenham camp for weeks at a time. They face ridicule, the threat of violence and even prison, eventually taking on President Ronald Reagan himself to stop the arrival of the missiles. This is the story of the housewives who risked it all to change the world.

The stories of 13 people caught up in the events of September 11, 2001, moving between accounts of the two-hour period when terrorists attacked the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and hijacked Flight 93 and what has happened in the 20 years since.

Almost 20 years since September 11, this feature-length documentary follows President George W Bush and his staff as they dealt with the large-scale terrorist attack, in which four commercial aircraft were used as missiles on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

Slick Instagram accounts and YouTube channels point to foreign exchange (Forex) trading as a route to extra cash. BBC reporter Dion Hesson dives into this world, meeting a host of passionate and charismatic young educators, some of whom say the Forex training they sell will put him on a path to financial independence. But what is the reality?

This film follows Charlie Craggs, trans activist and author, as she meets teenagers across the country who have been waiting years for a first appointment at an NHS gender identity clinic. Charlie explores what some feel they have to do to start their own transitions and meets young trans people who are choosing to take matters into their own hands and going down the dangerous route of using unregulated medications and starting their transitions themselves.

To mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott, author Damian Barr goes in search of the legacy and lasting influence of one of Scotland’s great historical figures, novelists and poets.
From the huge Scott monument on Princes Street Edinburgh, to Smailholm Tower in the Borders, from Loch Katrine - the setting for his most famous poem - The Lady of the Lake - to Doune Castle, a setting which continues to inspire historical novelists to this day - Damian takes us on a personal journey to discover the truth about the man, his world and his work.
In Search of Sir Walter Scott reveals the long lasting influence of Scott and his writing, his political campaigning and his role in creating a version of Scotland we are still living with today.

Vet Fabian Rivers reveals how the pandemic has triggered a boom in demand for puppies, particularly three breeds - bullies, frenchies and dachshunds. He investigates the complex worlds of these three dog breeds, explores why there is a boom in people buying and breeding ‘popular’ dogs, questions whether it is causing an animal welfare crisis and asks what can be done to help alleviate the problems?

Fabian has witnessed the puppy boom first-hand through his work at a small animal's veterinary practice in Birmingham. The huge increase in the numbers of people wanting to buy a puppy has resulted in prices going up, which in turn has led to more people breeding dogs and has boosted the relatively new canine fertility industry, with a proliferation of canine fertility clinics offering artificial insemination services for dogs and new training courses that teach people how to do artificial insemination themselves.

Fabian explores the huge price tags for some puppies and what draws people to these popular breeds, unpacks some of the hereditary health and welfare issues the breeds face, and he hears from the Dogs Trust that many puppies bought online are being illegally imported to the UK, requiring tighter regulations needed to improve the situation. Fabian also meets some prospective owners, introducing them to the RSPCA so they can find out the best practice when it comes to buying a new puppy. He also speaks to the RSPCA about the growing problem of dogs having their ears cropped, which has become popular with bully breeds, and highlights how barbaric and damaging this practice is.

To explore the rise in new breeders, Fabian hears from owners about their experiences of breeding their own dogs and the challenges and costs they have faced. He also meets people who have recently opened their own canine fertility clinics and hears concerns about what is being taught on one training course. He also uncovers evidence of worrying, illegal techniques being taught to am

Using first-hand testimony, this documentary pieces together those seismic consequences of 9/11 that have been keenly felt in Scotland over the last 20 years.

In the Russian Arctic, there is a phenomenon beyond ice fishing, matryoshkas and vodka. It's the garage. Rows of tin sheds, inhospitable from the outside, where everything can be found except cars. They are the refuge of the Russian man. A few square metres to dream and escape the pressures of life. This is where illegal fish shops operate, where saints are carved, where booze is distilled and where quails are bred.

In this film, the 'Garage People' speak for themselves, and with each other, sharing their concerns, fears and joys, and giving an insight into a secret world of everyday Russians.

Just outside Paris, inside a hi-tech vault, and encased in three vacuum-sealed bell jars, rests a small metallic cylinder about the diameter of a golf ball.

It may not look like much, but it is one of the most important objects on the planet. It affects nearly every aspect of our lives including the food we eat, the cars we drive, even the medicines we take. It is the kilogramme, the base unit of mass in the International System of Units. This small hunk of metal is the object against which all others are measured. Yet over time, its mass has mysteriously eroded by the weight of an eyelash. A change that, unbeknownst to most, unleashed a crisis with potentially dire consequences.

Measuring Mass: The Last Artefact follows the ensuing high-stakes, two-year race to redefine the weight of the world, and tells the story of one of the most important objects on the planet.

Between 1989 and 1994, Nirvana introduced a new and exciting brand of rock music to the UK – one that changed the musical landscape and influenced a generation of British youth.

Thirty years on since the release of their seminal album Nevermind, this documentary examines the special relationship between Nirvana and the UK – including the role Britain played in paving the way for their global success.

This is an astonishing tale of perseverance and ingenuity that reveals how scientists have battled against the odds for almost a century to detect and decode the neutrino, the smallest and strangest particle of matter in the universe.

Inside the world-renowned physics laboratory Fermilab, a team of scientists are constructing an audacious experiment to hunt for a mysterious new ‘ghost’ neutrino. If they find it, this could transform our understanding of the nature and fabric of our universe. The problem is, these tiny particles are almost impossible to detect.

Elsewhere, physicists conduct experiments in some of the most extreme environments on the planet: from deep mine shafts in South Dakota to vast ice fields at the South Pole. In these unlikely places supersized neutrino detectors hope to unlock the universe’s deepest secrets. Could neutrinos overturn the most precise theory of particle physics that humans have ever written down? Could they even be a link to a hidden realm of new particles that permeate the cosmos – so called dark matter? Scientists at Fermilab are edging towards the truth.

For the first time on television, more than a dozen members of the royal family offer their personal thoughts and reflections as they pay an historic tribute to the extraordinary life of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

All the children of the Queen and Prince Philip, along with their adult grandchildren and other members of the royal family, have contributed to this unique portrait of the longest-serving consort in royal history.

Originally conceived to mark Prince Philip’s one hundredth birthday, this landmark documentary features interviews filmed both before and after the duke’s death in April. The documentary makers have been inside Buckingham Palace to meet the duke’s staff and to capture his study, private office and library, exactly as they were during his seven decades at the heart of royal life.

There are poignant recollections, plenty of humour and numerous fresh insights into the character and legacy of this royal pioneer.

With special access to the Queen’s private cine film collection, this documentary is an unrivalled portrait of a man with a unique place in royal history - by those who knew him best.

After Charlie Webster was abused by her coach she never spoke to her friends in her running club again. Then years on an email sets her on a journey back to her past to find them.

The compelling story of 30-year-old climber Tom Ballard, who disappeared on one of the Himalaya's most deadly mountains in February 2019. Tom was the son of mountaineer Alison Hargreaves, who perished on K2 in 1995. Mother and son, two of the greatest climbers of all time, died at almost the same age in the same mountain range, both doing what they loved best. They now lie forever encased in the ice of the high Himalayas. Left behind to cope with the enduring tragedy are Tom's sister, Kate, and their father, Jim.

In 1995, Jim Ballard took his children, six-year-old Tom and four-year-old Kate, on an expedition to K2's basecamp to say farewell to their mother. The result was a BBC film, Alison's Last Mountain. Now, The Last Mountain follows Kate Ballard on a parallel trip to say goodbye to her brother on Nanga Parbat. Using archive from 1995 and Tom's own extraordinary footage taken up until the days before his death, the film explores what made Tom continue his ascent with Italian climber Daniele Nardi after the other two members of the expedition turned back.

The film features revealing interviews with those left behind. Combining 25 years of intimate, unseen family archive with footage of the family that director Chris Terrill has shot in the years since, the documentary tells the unforgettable story of a family who lived - and were prepared to die for - the love of scaling the icy heights of the world's highest peaks. It explores what it is that drives people to pit themselves against nature at its most ferocious and unforgiving.

Not an animal, nor a plant, nor fungi, the blob is one giant single cell whose amazing capacities are leading pioneer scientists to a very new world – that of brainless intelligence.More commonly known as slime mould, this extraordinary one-billion-year-old organism challenges our understanding of what constitutes intelligent life.Blending science fiction, the beauty of nature and cutting-edge science, this fascinating documentary follows top experts from Europe, Japan and the US on a scientific investigationinto this most surprising organism to explore the very roots of cognition.

A look at the hidden world of girls in gangs and the extent to which teenage girls are being criminally and sexually exploited.

A film that pays tribute to Christopher Nupen, who became Britain's first independent television producer in the 1960s at the dawn of the documentary era. It is also the story of how the talents of a golden generation of artists were forever preserved on film. Nupen came from an unlikely background in South Africa and "ticked none of the boxes." Still, seizing upon the emerging camera technology and his unique access, he filmed classical music in a wholly new and intimate way that broke down the barriers between artists and their public. As a result, this documentary is also an important story about the history of music on television and the great artists who collaborated on the films.

Now 86, Nupen reflects on 75 productions about artists and composers spanning more than 50 years. His body of work convincingly enforces his conviction that television is capable of remembering artists in a way that no other medium can equal. Oxford philosopher and historian Sir Isaiah Berlin described Nupen's films as being 'at just about the highest level that television can reach'.

The programme cherry-picks examples of Christopher Nupen's best work between 1966 and 2017. When he started, he instinctively blended documentary and musical performance to create a new genre of film. He filmed musicians at close quarters in their natural environment, where they have most to offer. Television picked up the exuberant spirit of the new generation and carried it far and wide. The effects were dramatic and brought countless numbers of people to music for the first time.

A musician himself, Nupen's musical friends were among the most renowned artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Capturing their unique talents on film, we relive sublime historical moments with Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman, Andrès Segovia, John Williams, Nathan Milstein, Placido Domingo, Itzhak Perlman, Jacqueline du Pré, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Evgeny Kissin and Daniil Trifonov.

As Nupen's experience grew, he

The inside story of the investigation into serial male rapist Reynhard Sinaga, the biggest rape case in British legal history. With exclusive access to Greater Manchester Police's investigation from 2017 to 2019, this film tells the story of Sinaga's horrific crimes and his eventual conviction, when he was prosecuted in 2020 for 159 counts of rape and other sexual offences, against 48 men.

In 2020, it was made public that Reynhard Sinaga had been prosecuted for 159 counts of rape and other sexual offences, against 48 men. But police found evidence relating to more than 200 victims, many of whom remain unidentified. With exclusive access to Greater Manchester Police's 2017-19 investigation, this film tells the story of serial male rapist Sinaga’s conviction - the biggest rape case in British legal history. From his flat on Princess Street, Manchester, mature student Reynhard Sinaga would target lone men who’d been on a night out and invite them into his home, with the offer of somewhere to have a drink or to call a taxi. But instead, once they were inside, he would drug, assault and rape them, recording the attacks and collecting personal belongings as ‘trophies’ from his victims.

Investigators found evidence of more than 200 victims, and many had no recollection of being abused until a police officer knocked on their door to tell them they’d been attacked and filmed. Some of these men still have not been identified. He had been offending for a decade.

As evidence of the horrific scale of Sinaga's offending was uncovered, this film tells the detailed inside story of how detectives pieced together an unprecedented prosecution.

And one of Sinaga’s victims, speaking in the film for the very first time, waves his right to anonymity to break the silence that surrounds male rape. His powerful testimony contributes to an important national conversation in the UK, where sexual violence against men remains one of the most underreported crimes.

Documentary charting singer-songwriter Ryan McMullan's journey to music stardom.

The film is centred around a four-day recording and listening session in Cruit Island, County Donegal, at the end of 2019. The session is an opportunity for Ryan and his team to assess all the songs competing for a place on his album, a potential breakthrough moment in his career.

Against this majestic landscape, we get to know Ryan and his artist and mentor Foy Vance, along with manager/drummer Paul ‘Hammy’ Hamilton. They are also joined by producer Eoin O’Callaghan, who has been drafted in to lend a fresh pair of ears to the album.

There is also a look at some of the key moments of Ryan’s career to date, including his first meeting with Foy Vance in Washington and how he connected with long-term collaborators Hammy and Foy as his management team, his support tour with Ed Sheeran and his growing links to leading Northern Irish band Snow Patrol.

Docudrama charting the life of the 18th-century poet, Alexander Pope (1688-1744), a forgotten genius, whose work dealt with issues that still concern modern society, including women's rights, friendship, freedom of speech, the environment, corruption in government, and what it means to be a moral citizen. Starring Simon Callow, Harriet Walter. Narrated by Emilia Fox and featuring contributions from John Cleese.

Over the past 35 years, former Arsenal and England footballer Paul Merson has gambled away a fortune. In this programme, he sets out to understand why his life has been so badly blighted by gambling and explores the relationship between football and gambling at a time when it has never been more urgent to question the industry’s place in the world of sport.

Now on the path to recovery, he wants to understand what caused his addiction. Could it be the way his brain is wired, his environment or both? Paul sets out to meet old teammates, scientists and psychologists to see if he can get close to finding the answer. He starts by meeting former Arsenal teammate Wes Reid. When they received their first pay cheques as Arsenal trainees, Paul and Wes went to the bookies, and Paul lost his entire week’s wages in 15 minutes, kicking off a 35-year struggle with gambling..

It started with a 999 call from a lorry driver in Essex and ended in one of the UK’s biggest ever police investigations, a hunt for those responsible for the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants.

Exactly 20 years ago Wales was emerging from an epidemic that lasted six months and saw over six million animals killed across the UK. The impact of foot and mouth disease was felt in every corner of Wales. Major events like rugby internationals were cancelled, access to the countryside banned and schools closed in rural areas. Farmers were forced to isolate at home and tourism was struggling.

It was one of the first major challenges for the newly devolved Welsh administration, with a young Carwyn Jones finding himself at the eye of the storm as the minister responsible for agriculture.

Many people most closely involved - the farmers, the vets, the people who slaughtered the animals - have never spoken before about the lasting effect that the epidemic had on them. It is clear that the emotion and trauma they experienced is still raw 20 years on.

This film looks back at what happened. There were desperate attempts to contain the epidemic and controversy over how to deal with a rapidly spreading disease. Hard decisions were made to cull hundreds of thousands of healthy animals in a bid to stop the infection.
Events reached a climax with the controversial decision to bury carcasses at the Epynt, an upland area near Sennybridge used as a military range. Locals blocked roads and Carwyn Jones faced his biggest challenge yet.

An immersive journey through the trailblazing life of Jackie Collins. Spinning together fact and fiction, this documentary tells the untold story of a groundbreaking author and her mission to build a one-woman literary empire.
Narrated by a cast of Jackie’s closest friends and family, the film reveals the private struggles of a woman who became an icon of 1980s feminism whilst hiding her personal vulnerability behind a carefully crafted public persona.

At the end of a decade when the world was in crisis and inspiration needed resurrecting, an influential duo released a masterpiece of popular music, Bridge over Troubled Water. Through darkness and light, the album takes its listeners on an emotional ride that echoes its era, and has proved to be a work that continues to inspire an audience the world over. Its symphonic hymn of a title track became an anthem for a generation.

This film tells the story behind what is widely considered Simon and Garfunkel's greatest work. The influential duo's last studio album has its legacy shrouded in rock'n'roll mythology, complete with legendary tales of inspiration, innovation and separation. Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel and their collaborators share the journey in their own words and reflect back on its impact 40 years later, using never-before-seen film, photos and memorabilia.

Nick Beake travels to Norway to meet the young people taking on their government in an attempt to prevent further drilling for oil and gas. They believe their country's export of fossil fuels is putting the planet in peril, and it's one of many similar fights emerging across Europe.

A journey into January's storming of the US Capitol, featuring exclusive footage and interviews with the people at the heart of the action, many of whom are speaking publicly for the first time.

A collection of classic hits from the stable of one of Britain’s greatest and most successful music producers, the legendary Trevor Horn.

On the 100th anniversary of its creation, Patrick Kielty explores what the future holds for Northern Ireland.

He investigates why a new trade border in the Irish Sea has led to violent protests, sparking fear among some of a return to conflict, nearly 25 years after the end of the Troubles; a conflict which claimed thousands of lives, including that of his father Jack Kielty.

In this very personal film, Patrick’s focus is on a new generation born long after the ceasefire, as he tries to understand what is driving this new wave of unrest, particularly in Loyalist communities. He also explores why some feel that a united Ireland could now be on the horizon and how the trauma of Northern Ireland’s past is shaping its future.