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
Bettany Hughes’s Treasures Of The World
Channel 4
Saturday 13th April, 7pm
In which Bettany Hughes heads for Estonia, where she visits the island of Saaremaa to see evidence the Vikings were on the move long before they attacked Lindisfarne. Plus in the capital, Tallinn, Hughes traces the story of a medieval shipwreck. Fascinating, especially the bit about the rats.
Archive On 4: 7” Of Joy – The Single At 75
Radio 4
Saturday 13th April, 8pm
Producer Pete Waterman celebrates the seven-inch single, first launched by RCA Victor in 1949. It’s a tale encompassing moral panics, the emergence of teenage culture and British artists’ invasion of the US charts in the 1960s. There’s more music history in Split Ends (Tuesday 16th April, 4.00pm), a new series on why bands split up. First up, Dr Feelgood.
How Abba Won Eurovision
Channel 5
Saturday 13th April, 9pm
It’s 50 years since Abba fetched up in Brighton to sing Waterloo in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, an event that helped catapult the band towards stardom. This documentary tells the story behind what happened. There’s rather grittier musical history in Kurt Cobain: Moments That Shook Music (BBC Two, 9.15pm), which recalls the Nirvana frontman’s 1994 suicide.
Fragments: The London Nail Bombings
Radio 4
Sunday 14th April, 7.15pm
It’s a quarter of a century since a right-wing terrorist, targeting minority communities, planted a series of nail bombs in London. This documentary hears both from survivors and from Chris Taylor, who photographed the aftermath of the fatal attack on the Admiral Duncan, a gay pub in Soho.
Book Of The Week: An African History Of Africa
Radio 4
Monday 15th April, 11.45am
Zeinab Badowi reads from her book offering an African history told through the voices of Africans. Over five weekday episodes, it’s a narrative that takes in paleontological discoveries, the ancient civilisation of Aksum, the Indian Ocean slave trade, the ruins of Great Zimbabwe and the continent’s recent history.
Glued Up: The Sticky Story Of Humanity
Radio 4
Monday 15th April, 1.45pm
According to materials scientist Mark Miodownik, glues hold our world together. It’s an idea he explores here over five weekday episodes, which begin with a look at the very earliest adhesives, employed by our distant ancestors as long as 190,000 years ago.
Great Coastal Railway Journeys
BBC Two
Monday 15th April, 6.30pm
Michael Portillo’s latest weekday travelogue takes him along the western coast of Wales, a journey that begins with a visit to the Victorian cliff railway at Aberystwyth. Look out too for Michael Portillo’s Long Weekends (Channel 5, Friday 19th April, 9.00pm), a three-part series first follows its host to Madrid.
Pompeii: The New Dig – pick of the week
BBC Two
Monday 15th April, 9pm
As this new series makes clear, archaeological work at Pompeii is still yielding up fresh insights into the Roman world. The first of three episodes shows us the excavations of a brick-built oven that was used in a commercial bakery and the home of a well-to-do citizen.
In Our Time
Radio 4
Thursday 18th April, 9am
Melvyn Bragg and learned guests discuss Napoleon’s Hundred Days. The term refers to a brief period that began when Napoleon returned to Paris from exile in Elba in March 1815, a prelude to defeat at the battle of Waterloo and, in July, the second restoration of King Louis XVIII.
Nelson Mandela: A Life In Ten Pictures
BBC Two
Thursday 18th April, 9pm
What do images of Nelson Mandela reveal about their subject? The latest episode in an excellent series ponders this question via images of Mandela that range from private snaps to famous shots. Those who knew South Africa’s first black president, including fellow activist Albie Sachs and a Robben Island guard, offer their insights.
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