TV & radio: what to tune in to next week (11-17 September)

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Time Crashers
Channel 4
Sunday 13 September, 8.00pm

The celebrities head back to 1796, where they sample life as Georgian agricultural workers. Cue yet more scenes of Kirstie Alley complaining, trimming the muck from a sheep’s bottom so it looks presentable and, for Greg Rutherford, a pigsty-cleaning assignment.

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The King Who Invented Ballet: Louis XIV and the Noble Art of Dance
BBC Four
Sunday 13 September, 8.00pm

David Bintley, director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet, examines how Louis XIV influenced the development of dance in the 17th and 18th centuries. We learn how cutting a rug was a key social skill in Louis’ royal court, and we discover how the monarch founded the world’s first ballet school.

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_{Hubert Hazebroucq, a Baroque dancer, dressed as Louis XIV outside the Palace of Versailles in Paris. (Credit: BBC/Alex Jonas)}

Computing Britain
Radio 4
Monday 14 September, 1.45pm

Part of the BBC’s Make It Digital season, Hannah Fry presents a 10-part weekday series examining Britain’s role in the development of computing. In Calculating Ada: The Countess of Computing (BBC Four, Thursday 17 September, 9.00pm) Fry tells the story of a woman who was among the first to acknowledge the significance of Charles Babbage’s steam-powered proto-computers.

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Oil: A Crude History of Britain
Radio 4
Monday 14 September, 8.00pm

John Naughtie continues the story of how North Sea Oil has transformed life in Britain by reflecting on whether the country should have founded an oil fund, as was done in Norway. Plus, Naughtie remembers the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster, when 167 men lost their lives.

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Treasures of the Indus
BBC Four
Monday 14 September, 9.00pm

Sona Datta travels across the state of Tamil Nadu, an area key to the development of the Hindu religion and famed for its temples. Also this week, William Dalrymple presents The Essay: A Short History of Indian Art (Radio 3, weekdays, 10.45pm), which focuses on five pieces of Indian art and sculpture.

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Canals: The Making of a Nation
BBC Four
Tuesday 15 September, 8.00pm

Before railway mania, there was canal mania. This was when our forebears dug waterway after waterway to link cities and towns across Britain. Travelling the Grand Union Canal, Liz McIvor outlines how this frenzy of building helped give birth to London’s finance sector.

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Pick of the Week...

Lucy Worsley’s Reins of Power: The Art of Horse Dancing
BBC Four
Tuesday 15 September, 9.00pm

Horse dancing, or manège, has long fascinated Lucy Worsley. In a one-off documentary, she explores how some of our forebears were obsessed with this precursor to dressage, and also looks at the role of horsemanship in commanding power. Expect scenes of a novice rider clearly having a lot of fun.

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The Ascent of Woman
BBC Two
Wednesday 16 September, 9.00pm

Amanda Foreman reveals how powerful women have helped to shape our world's history. In this episode, she profiles Theodora, who rose from being a street performer to become co-ruler of the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century. Foreman also explores the life of Christine de Pizan, who wrote about women’s rights in the 14th century.

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_{Contributors Annabel, Imogen and Liz with an image of Queen Elizabeth I. (Credit: BC/Silver River)}

Titchmarsh on Capability Brown
More4
Thursday 17 September, 9.00pm

Alan Titchmarsh profiles his hero, Lancelot “Capability” Brown - a gardener who famously made the earth move for aristocrats by creating things on a grand scale. This three-part series also charts bringing a Brown design, long thought lost, to life at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire.

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