History TV and radio in the UK: what's on our screens this week?
Can't decide which shows to watch or listen to this week? Here are the latest history radio and TV programmes airing in the UK that you won't want to miss
You’re Dead To Me
Radio 4
Saturday 16th March, 10am
Always as entertaining as it is informative, Greg Jenner’s podcast goes from strength to strength. This week’s episode focuses on Ramesses the Great and tackles the really important questions, such as how did the leader get his nickname? With comedian Sophie Duker and Ancient Egypt expert Dr Campbell Price.
Three Million
Radio 4
Sunday 17th March, 1.30pm
The fourth episode of Kavita Puri’s series about the Bengal famine finds the presenter listening to a set of cassettes featuring interviews with Indian civil servants who worked in a region where millions starved. Plus could Britain’s War Cabinet have done more to help?
Book Of The Week: How To Win An Information War – Sefton Delmer, The Genius Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler
Radio 4
Monday 18th March, 9.45am
Over five weekday episodes, Alex Cox reads from Peter Pomerantsev’s biography of journalist and propagandist Sefton Delmer (1904–79). A British subject born in Berlin to Australian parents, Delmer interviewed Adolf Hitler in 1931 and later became a driving force in the Allied information war against Nazism.
Great British Railway Journeys – pick of the week
BBC Two
Monday 18th March, 6.30pm
Just when you thought there couldn’t possibly be a British railway line on which Michael Portillo hadn’t travelled, he gets back on the rails. In the first of 15 new weekday episodes, the former politician begins a post-Second World War-themed exploration of Britain’s southern counties. In Oxford, that means tracing the origins of the charity shop.
Secrets In The Sand
Sky History
Monday 18th March, 9pm
We live in an age of increasingly violent sandstorms and the erosion of arid landscapes. One upside of all this is, as a new six-part series explores, that previously lost and unknown archaeological sites are becoming exposed. Highlights in this opening episode include the discovery of 96 ancient mummies in Chile.
The Exiles: Secretly Deported
PBS America
Monday 18th March, 9.05pm
At the end of the Second World War, thousands of Asian men were forcibly deported from their adopted homes in the UK and Australia. This two-part series shown over successive evenings tells some of their stories, beginning with an episode about the Chinese seamen who worked for the Merchant Navy during the conflict.
The Essay: New Generation Thinkers
Radio 3
Monday 18th March, 10.45pm
The series highlighting the work of emerging academics returns with 10 new weeknight episodes. History features regularly as we hear talks on Amalia Holst, likened to Mary Wollstonecraft for the way she advocated for women’s education in Germany in the early 19th century (Tuesday) and Viking burials (Wednesday).
Mary & George
Sky Atlantic
Tuesday 19th March, 9pm
Episode three of the entertaining drama charting life at the court of James I and VI, and scheming Mary Villiers (Julianne Moore) hatches a plan to take down the Earl of Somerset. Elsewhere, Francis Bacon offers some advice to George (Nicholas Galitzine).
In Our Time
Radio 4
Thursday 21st March, 9am
Melvyn Bragg and learned guests discuss the Roman emperor and philosopher Julian the Apostate (331–63). Julian got his name because he renounced Christianity and, in its place, promoted Neoplatonic Hellenism. Why did he take this decision and what were its consequences?
The Railway Map Of Britain
Channel 5
Friday 22nd March, 8pm
How did Britain’s railways come to be built? Following on from last week’s documentary about canals, a programme that explores the genius of such engineering giants as Stephenson, Telford and, of course, Brunel – plus how their work transformed the country.
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