TV & Radio

Sheila Hancock is drawn to the immediacy of watercolours, once used to capture scenes much in the way we might now use photography. Tying in with a new exhibition at Tate Britain, she traces the history of the medium, both via famous artists, notably JMW Turner, and lesser-known figures such as Lady Charlotte Canning.

Tristram Hunt returns to front another series of the show that looks at how notions hatched in Britain spread around the world in unexpected ways. He begins with the work of Robert Malthus on population and the way it’s helped shaped Indian history in different eras.

During World War Two, the British knew former Spanish farmer Juan Pujol as Garbo, such was the double agent’s acting ability. As this Storyville documentary explores, it was an ability that was to prove key to the success of the D-Day landings.

Neil Oliver explores what he dubs the ‘Age of Cosmology’, the Neolithic era when our ancestors built such vast monuments as Stonehenge. There’s life on a more domestic scale too, as Oliver sees evidence of day-to-day life preserved in the stone houses of Skara Brae.

As the seemingly inexorable rise of China continues, how many of us really understand the country’s history? Thought so... Step forward Melvyn Bragg and erudite guests, who this week discuss the Taiping Rebellion, an 1850 revolt that led to civil war and around 20 million deaths.