Story: "Sam's Simple Song"
Written by Peter Charlton
Guest storyteller Colin Jeavons

(Repeated on BBC1 at 4.10 pm)
(Colour)

with Peter Woods
Reporting the world tonight
Weather

In the first programme of the autumn series a film of Ravel's masterpiece.
A lyric fantasy in two scenes with text by Colette.

A small child is reprimanded by his mother; in a fit of temper he destroys everything in the room. With that the magic begins and the broken objects come to life and rebel against him. He is rejected by the animals and trees which attack him furiously. In the fight a baby squirrel is hurt and the child bandages its wound. The animals are amazed, and wonder at the boy's rediscovered wisdom and goodness.
Ensemble Madrigal
Director Janine Reiss
Orchestra National
Conducted by Jean Perisson

This third film in the series of four finds Sir John Betjeman in the island state of Tasmania: 'An offshoot of England, near the South Pole.' He looks at its origins as a penal settlement, the architectural development of the capital, Hobart, and visits several fine houses in the north.
He contemplates the intrusion of the 20th century: cars, pylons, high-rise buildings. 'The New Bush has reached the ends of the earth. It has reached Tasmania.'

A BBC/ABC co-production
(Colour)

by Arden Winch
With Clive Swift as Inspector Waugh

Reporters Jeremy James, Jeanne La Chard, John Pitman, Desmond Wilcox, Harold Williamson

This week: The Bronx is Burning
This summer Man Alive spent three weeks with the men of Engine Company 82 and Ladder Company 31 going out to fight fires in New York's South Bronx. In this urban jungle, fires are started by children for the fun of seeing the fire engines arrive; malicious false alarms call them out often 50 times a day. Traps are set in derelict buildings; bricks and stones are hurled. Over 5,000 New York firemen were injured and six died last year.
(BBC2 People: page 4)

A preview
with Anthony Hopkins and Morag Hood
(Shown last Saturday. War and Peace begins on BBC2 tomorrow. Radio Times illustrated guide from newsagents: 25p)

and Weather