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
Music Matters: 400 Years Of The Royal Collection
BBC Radio 3
Saturday 11th October, 1pm
It’s four centuries since composer Nicholas Lanier (1588–1666) was appointed as the first Master of the King’s Music. Lanier also put in place the foundations of the Royal Collection, which now comprises around 700,000 pieces. Over four episodes, Ian Skelly explores the stories and musical connections attached to different items in one of the world’s greatest art collections.
Bettany Hughes’s Treasures Of The World
Channel 4
Saturday 11th October, 7pm
The classicist heads out on her travels again, this time around beginning in Croatia on the island of Korcula. Off its coast, she sees evidence of a Neolithic settlement. She also visits Split and Dubrovnik. As ever with this excellent series, Hughes focuses in on artefacts she sees as starting points to tell wider stories.
Great British Train Journeys From Above
Channel 4
Saturday 11th October, 8pm
Hugh Bonneville narrates a new series that, as the name suggests, makes extensive use of drone footage. First up, cameras follow The Jacobite steam train as it chuffs through the Scottish Highlands. Highlights along the way include a visit to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s hideout.
Archive On 4: War And Peace – The UN At 80
BBC Radio 4
Saturday 11th October, 8pm
Created in the aftermath of the Second World War, the United Nations’ role is to keep the peace and promote global cooperation. Can looking back at the UN’s time under the leadership of Burmese diplomat U Thant suggest clues as how it can best go forward?
Rob Brydon’s Honky Tonk Road Trip
BBC Two
Sunday 12th October, 9pm
Continuing his travels in the American South, Rob Brydon visits the Appalachian Mountains. Will he survive a drive around a dirt track in a stock car? Or indeed the local moonshine? Plus a visit to Dollywood and a look back at the 1927 Bristol Sessions, which helped to launch the careers of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family.
Book Of The Week: 1929 – pick of the week
BBC Radio 4
Monday 13th October, 11.45am
For most of us, it’s impossible to read all the history books that grab our attention. This makes the Book Of The Week slot, often featuring new history books, a tremendous resource. Here, over five weekday episodes, Demetri Goritsas reads from Andrew Ross Sorkin’s acclaimed account of the Wall Street crash of 1929.
Ancient Autopsy
More4
Monday 13th October, 9pm
Concluding the series, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb investigates the death of Tutankhamun. Can Howard Carter’s diary or high-speed chariot tests help us to understand how the young pharaoh met his end? Also this week on More4, look out for Great Estates From Above (Thursday 16th September, 9pm), which features spectacular footage of the Howard Estate in Yorkshire.
History’s Toughest Heroes
BBC Radio 4
Tuesday 14th October, 3pm
Episode two of the excellent profile series focuses on Kitty O’Neil (1946–2018), a deaf stuntwoman and auto-racer who used her disability as a kind of a superpower. Her credits included The Bionic Woman, The Blues Brothers and Wonder Woman, and in the 1970s she set the world land-speed record for female drivers. Presented by Ray Winstone.
Art’s Most… Satanic
Sky Arts
Tuesday 14th October, 9pm
Waldemar Januszczak considers representations of Lucifer in art down the centuries. The Devil is, notes the writer and historian, a shapeshifter who shows up all over the globe in different guises. A travelogue that takes in, among other destinations, Spain and Japan.
Witches Of Essex
Sky History
Tuesday 14th October, 9pm
Rylan Clark and Alice Roberts head to the hinterlands of the nation’s capital and beyond to ask why, during the 16th and 17th centuries, so many women in Essex were accused of being witches. They begin with the story of an Elizabethan trial held in Chelmsford, weighing the evidence in cold case style.