TV & radio: what to tune in to next week (17-23 July)
Can't decide what programmes to watch or listen to? Here are 10 you won't want to miss...
Rock ‘n’ Roll America
BBC Four
Friday 17 July, 9pm
The way in which rock ‘n’ roll began to change during the early 1960s by incorporating more pop and Motown sounds is the main focus of this programme – the final episode of the series. This documentary explores how the likes of the Beach Boys and the Beatles created mass hysteria among American teens with their new style of rock ‘n’ roll.
The Saboteurs
More4
Friday 17 July, 9pm
The Norwegian series that follows the Nazis’ efforts to develop the atomic bomb continues. In this episode, the Allies decide to bomb a German factory in order to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons.
(Credit: Faye Oakwell/Arrow Films/Channel 4)
Air-Force One
BBC Radio 4
Saturday 18 July, 2.30pm
Christopher Lee’s new play explores what happened immediately after the assassination of President John F Kennedy in November 1963. Lee has based his interpretation of events on classified and academic research, along with personal accounts, diaries and statements from Mrs Kennedy.
Charlotte Stuart: The Last Stuart
BBC Radio 4
Saturday 18 July, 9pm
Mike Walker’s epic Stuarts series concludes by looking at Charlotte Stuart, the illegitimate daughter of Charles Edward Stuart – the Jacobite pretender Bonnie Prince Charlie. After years of neglect from her father, Charlotte left her three children to go to live and care for him. This drama debates why Charlotte made the fateful decision to reconnect with Charles Edward Stuart, and discusses whether she was the last ‘victim’ of the Stuart family.
In Search of the Black Mozart
BBC Radio 4
Sunday 19 July, 1.30pm
In the first episode of this two-part series, musician Chi-chi Nwanoku explores the history of black classical musicians who composed and played music during the 18th century. Nwanoku discovers more about the life of Ignatius Sancho – a musician born into slavery who later became the first black person to qualify to vote in an election in Britain after becoming a successful shopkeeper in Westminster, London.
Pick of the week
Cake Bakers and Trouble Makers: Lucy Worsley’s 100 Years of the WI
BBC Two
Monday 20 July, 9pm
To mark the 100th birthday of the Women’s Institute, Lucy Worsley reveals the history of the great British institution. She considers the crucial role played by the WI on the home front during both the First and Second World Wars, and reveals how membership levels began to decline as a result of the social revolution during the 1960s.
A History of Ideas: Historian Justin Champion on Toleration
BBC Radio 4
Tuesday 21 July, 12:04pm
In the latest episode of the series presented by Melvyn Bragg, historian Justin Champion discusses philosopher John Locke’s theory of toleration by tracking the history of the inhabitants of Spitalfields. Champion also visits the famous mosque on Brick Lane, which was first built as a Huguenot Church and then turned into a synagogue before being transformed into its present day place of worship.
Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners
BBC Two
Wednesday 22 July, 9pm
In the second episode of this two-part documentary series, historian David Olusoga continues to examine the forgotten history of 19th-century slave owners. By searching through 46,000 names of slave owners from the British Empire in the National Archives, Olusoga discovers more than we had ever known before about the people who once owned half of the slaves in the empire.
(Credit: BBC/James Van Der Pool)
Queen Victoria’s Letters: A Monarch Unveiled
BBC Four
Thursday 23 July, 9pm
In the second episode of this two-part documentary, AN Wilson reveals that Queen Victoria may have led a more exciting life after the death of Prince Albert than we may have first thought. By studying Victoria’s letters and journals, Wilson discovers that the queen’s friendships with John Brown, a highland servant, and her Indian servant, Abdul Karim, were controversial, and showed the queen to be far from the reserved character that we often imagine.
Digging for Britain
BBC Four
Thursday 23 July, 10pm
In the second episode of this series, professor Alice Roberts and archaeologist Matt Williams present what archaeologists were unearthing during their excavations in the west of Britain during the summer of 2014. Highlights include sites from the Bronze Age and the Roman period, and a discovery of one of the UK’s earliest hospitals.
