BBC Four

World News Today

The latest news and business developments.

World News Today: 21/05/2009

21/05/2009

BBC News Channel - World News Today, 21/05/2009

The latest news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

BBC News Channel

An impartial and independent news service offering breaking news, analysis and insight.

A 24-hour impartial and independent news service offering breaking news, analysis and insight. It provides fast and comprehensive coverage of local, UK and international events.

The New Avengers

Classic British secret agent fantasy adventure series.

The New Avengers: Series 2

The New Avengers: Series 2: Episode 10: Complex

Episode 10

Episode 10: Complex

Series 2

Complex

BBC Four - The New Avengers, Series 2, Complex

The Avengers may have discovered a clue to the identity of the USSR's most effective spy.

Agent X41, codename Scapina, is the USSR's most effective spy. But a photograph has fallen into the hands of the Avengers which may give a clue to his identity.

Agent X41, codename Scapina, is the USSR's most effective spy. But a photograph has fallen into the hands of the Avengers which may give a clue to his identity. The trail leads the trio to Toronto.

Knowledge, arts, music and culture from the UK and the world.

BBC Four reflects arts, music and culture with an ambitious range of intellectually and culturally enriching programmes, taking an expert and in-depth approach to its subjects.

The team gets a clue about the identity of Russia's most effective spy, which leads them to Toronto.

Poetry Please: Thirty Years of the People's Poetry

17/05/2009

BBC Four - Poetry Please: Thirty Years of the People's Poetry

A behind the scenes look at the world's longest running poetry request programme.

A behind the scenes look at the world's longest running poetry request programme, following the programme-makers, presenter Roger McGough and listeners of the Radio 4 show.

A behind the scenes look at the world's longest running poetry request programme, following the programme-makers, presenter Roger McGough and ordinary listeners of the Radio 4 show. Poets, actors and famous fans including Rick Stein, Kenneth Cranham, Andrew Sachs, Andrew Motion, Tim Pigott-Smith and David Blunkett also share their insights on the secret of its success.

Poetry Please:Thirty Years of the People's Poetry

Behind the scenes of Radio 4's long-running poetry request show as it reaches its 
30th anniversary. Part of Poetry Season. Shown Sunday, 9.30pm  bbc.co.uk/poetry How to read poetry: page 25

Ian Hislop's Changing of the Bard

16/05/2009

BBC Four - Ian Hislop's Changing of the Bard

A look at one of the most peculiar offices in the establishment, that of Poet Laureate.

Ian Hislop looks at one of the most peculiar offices in the British establishment, that of Poet Laureate, whose long history produces a gloriously eccentric picture of who we are.

Ian Hislop takes an amused look at one of the most peculiar offices in the British establishment, that of Poet Laureate. Its 341-year history produces a gloriously eccentric picture of who we are, how we are ruled, what we want to say about ourselves and just how hard it is to do that in verse. 

We know that Poets Laureate write about royal weddings but Hislop discovers a whole lot more, such as 534, John Masefield's brilliant poem on the launch of the Queen Mary from the Clydebank shipyards and Nicholas Rowe's New Year's Ode for 1716 dedicated to the Princess of Wales's labour pains. There was Colley Cibber, the Laureate so ashamed of his poor output he adopted a pseudonym and wrote poems attacking himself, and Alfred Tennyson, who wrote the nation's favourite laureate poem, Charge of the Light Brigade.  

The film also throws light on the shadowy process by which the appointment is made. Lord Gowrie, the arts minister in Mrs Thatcher's cabinet, reveals how Ted Hughes came to be Thatcher's choice for Laureate, when many people were still hostile towards him due to his wife Sylvia Plath's suicide.  

A visit to the National Archive unearths a hilarious list by C P Duff, a top civil servant, ranking the poets of the day for the benefit of one very confused prime minister, and Candida Lycett Green reveals to Ian just how much whisky it took before her father, John Betjeman, could summon up a poem to celebrate Princess Anne's wedding.

Ian gets to the bottom of the bizarre tradition of the payment in sherry (650 bottles of the stuff), and after trying a glass or two himself, poetic inspiration strikes and he concludes the film with his very own ode to Carol Ann Duffy, our newest Poet Laureate.

Ian Hislop'sChanging of the Bard

Ian Hislop explores the history of the poet laureate, finding out how previous holders have been chosen. Part of Poetry Season. See choice, page 50. 
Shown on Saturday at 10pm

A Poet's Guide to Britain

A Poet's Guide to Britain: Episode 3: George Mackay Brown

Episode 3

Episode 3: George Mackay Brown

George Mackay Brown

BBC Four - A Poet's Guide to Britain, George Mackay Brown

Owen Sheers visits the Orkneys to explore George Mackay Brown's poem Hamnavoe.

Owen Sheers explores poetry set in the British landscape. He looks at George Mackay Brown's Hamnavoe and visits his home town of Stromness in the Orkneys.

Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores six great works of poetry set in the British landscape. Each poem explores a sense of place and identity across Britain and opens the doors to captivating stories about the places and the lives of the poets themselves. 

George Mackay Brown, who died in 1996, was the great poetic voice of the Orkneys and one of the foremost Scottish poets of the 20th century. Sheers travels to the place the locals call the Venice of the North, the Orkney town of Stromness, which was Mackay Brown's home and the backdrop for much of his work, including his great poem Hamnavoe.

In Hamnavoe, the Viking name for Stromness, Mackay Brown takes the reader on a nostalgic and blustery tour of the town in the footsteps of his father, the local postman. Sheers uses the poem as a tour guide to Mackay Brown's Orkney life and work, exploring the narrow streets where George was born and wrote his first poems and taking diversions to the great cathedral of St Magnus, the Norse patron saint of the islands, and the remote island of Rackwick.

The poem opens up a moving story of a father and son and showcases Mackay Brown's exquisite, concise, gem-like writing. With ravishing views of the islands in the distinctive Orcadian light, the programme is a hymn to a unique corner of Britain. It also features, among other friends and fans of Mackay Brown, the contemporary Scottish poet Don Patterson.

Owen Sheers explores six great works of poetry set in the British landscape.

Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores six great works of poetry set in the British landscape.

3/6. George Mackay Brown. Owen Sheers studies Hamnavoe by George Mackay Brown , visiting the poet's home town of Stromness in Orkney, which provided the backdrop for the verse. Part of Poetry Season. See choice, page 70. Shown Monday at 8.30pm 
  bbc.co.uk/poetry How to read poetry: page 25

Feasts

Feasts: Episode 1: India

Episode 1

Episode 1: India

India

BBC Four - Feasts, India

In India, Stefan Gates experiences the festival of Onam and takes part in the tiger dance.

Stefan Gates takes part in feasts and festivals around the globe. In India, he attends an expensive Rajasthani Hindu wedding and experiences the bewildering festival of Onam.

Series in which food writer and presenter Stefan Gates immerses himself in some of the most extraordinary feasts and festivals on earth. By joining ordinary people in these strange and wonderful distillations of their culture and beliefs, he hopes to gain a revelatory insight into how the world thinks and feels. 

Stefan makes a journey across India to discover how feasts and celebration divide - and bring together - a turbulent nation that can be riven by religious tension and extremes of wealth.  

He is shocked to see how much extravagance and social engineering there is in an expensive showpiece Rajasthani Hindu wedding, yet how little emotion is actually expressed. These events are spectacular, and the scale is terrifying for a father of two young daughters.

In Kerala, Stefan experiences the bewildering festival of Onam, a Hindu celebration that brings this massive state of millions of people together, Hindu and Christian, rich and poor alike. Over several days he joins almost all of the entire 32m population in sitting down to exactly the same meal - an 11-portion feast eaten with fingers from a banana leaf.

Stefan joins in the Pulikali, the tiger dance, and is apparently he first westerner ever to take part. It is  the most physically uncomfortable, gruesome day of his life. He has his body hair shaved off with a dry razor, then spends five hours being painted with several layers of household gloss paint, holding on to two sticks to keep his arms outstretched as he dries out. He is then covered in a sweaty, sticky mask and a pair of bordello pants, and packed off into the streets to join his team in dancing like a maniac around the baking-hot streets of the city of Thrissur for four hours.

Food writer Stefan Gates immerses himself in extraordinary feasts and festivals

Series in which food writer and TV presenter Stefan Gates immerses himself in some of the most extraordinary feasts and festivals on earth

1/3. India. Stefan Gates visits India where he observes the opulence at a traditional Hindu wedding. See choice, page 90. 
Shown yesterday at 9pm

Mark Lawson Talks To...

Mark Lawson in conversation with famous personalities from all walks of life

Mark Lawson Talks To

Mark Lawson Talks To...: Ian Hislop

09/05/2009

Ian Hislop

BBC Four - Mark Lawson Talks To..., Ian HislopSearch BBC

Private Eye editor Ian Hislop discusses his role as a satirist with Mark Lawson.

Private Eye editor Ian Hislop discusses his role as a satirist with Mark Lawson. He talks about the importance of Christianity to him and his years in Have I Got News For You?

Private Eye editor Ian Hislop discusses his role as a satirist with Mark Lawson. 

He talks about how boarding school became a second home after the premature death of his father, and his own expectation of an early demise. 

Christianity has been a consistent factor in his life, and he describes how he regularly flirts with doubt but always returns to faith. 

He also reveals the goings on behind the scenes of Have I Got News For You? where he has been a team captain for almost 20 years, and how the long-running spat with Piers Morgan came about.

Mark Lawson Talks to Ian Hislop

The editor of Private Eye discusses his role as a satirist and shares details of his life, including how his boarding school became his second home.

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