Five Days That Changed Britain

The extraordinary behind-the-scenes story of five days in May when the UK's political leaders haggled over who should form the next government. In exclusive interviews, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and other key players tell the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson how the coalition government was created

BBC2 29 July 2010 60 minutes

Extraordinary People: The Human Camera

Five’s acclaimed documentary strand continues with another remarkable tale of human experience. This film profiles autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire, who is able to draw massively detailed landscapes entirely from memory. The film charts his progress from childhood to international success as an artist, and shows how he has overcome his autism to cope with social situations and achieve a limited form of independence.

Fiver 10 July 2010 60 minutes

How to Build...A Jumbo Jet Engine

As the Dreamliner makes its inaugural flight, Rolls-Royce engineers celebrate the performance of its revolutionary Trent 1000 jet engines. They're the latest in a family of sophisticated aero engines that have driven Rolls-Royce to become world leaders in the market for jumbo jet engines.

This is the story of the thousands of people who design, build and test engines at Rolls-Royce's manufacturing plants in Derby and across the UK, making Rolls-Royce a central part of life for the people who work there.

Exploring some of the astonishing technology behind the engines' advanced components, the programme meets the skilled engineers who design and build them, and experience the ups and downs of life on the assembly line.

BBC2 4 July 2010 60 minutes

Lennon Naked

Christopher Eccleston is John Lennon in a drama which charts his transition from Beatle John to enduring and enigmatic icon.

Writer Robert Jones articulates the burden of genius, as well as issues of fatherhood and fame, covering a period of wildly fluctuating fortunes for Lennon from 1967-71. When the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein died unexpectedly in 1967 it was a turning point in Lennon's life and the film focuses on the turbulent and intense period of change that followed, and how John was haunted by his troubled childhood.

It also reveals the impact of re-establishing contact with his long-lost father and the events that led Lennon to shed everything both personally and creatively, including calling time on the Beatles. Meeting Yoko Ono was the catalyst for this new era and the film explores the development of their extraordinary relationship, their growing disillusionment with Britain and what caused Lennon to abandon the UK to start a new life in America - a process which ultimately led Lennon to record arguably the most powerful solo work of his career.

BBC4 23 June 2010 90 minutes

Imagine...

Art is Child's Play

For many great cultural figures, the formative childhood experience of play has helped to unleash their creativity and shape their later work.

In this programme, Alan Yentob considers the influence of play with some of Britain's leading artists, including Tracey Emin, Grayson Perry, Marc Quinn, Gavin Turk, Mat Collishaw and David Bailey, who offer fascinating insights into the transformative power of their early creative experiences.

BBC1 22 June 2010 40 minutes

Doctor Who

Vincent and The Doctor

Acclaimed episode of the popular SF series in which The Doctor meets Vincent Van Gogh, allowing the series to deal with issues such as depression and mental illness in a way that it has never done before.

BBC1 5 June 2010 50 minutes

Classic Albums: Plastic Ono Band

PLASTIC ONO BAND was John Lennon's first solo studio album after after break up of the Beatles. This episode of the CLASSIC ALBUMS series uses interviews with Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and bass player Klaus Voorman, archival footage, and detailed analysis of the original multi-track masters to tell the story behind the canonical album.

BBC4 14 July 2010

Are You Having a Laugh? TV and Disability

Narrated by David Walliams, Are You Having A Laugh? - TV And Disability is an irreverent, funny and often cringe-making look at how television has portrayed disability over the past 50 years.

From Sandy in Crossroads to Brenda in The Office, Walliams highlights how the subject has been done well, how it's been done badly, and how box ticking, political correctness and the odd token wheelchair has taken TV from Ironside to Little Britain in one generation.

With contributions from Stephen Merchant, Ben Miller, Mat Fraser and Kiruna Stamell, Tanni Grey-Thompson and Ash Atalla, Dom Joly, Julie Fernandez and Frencesca Martinez, the programme looks back at the way society was used to seeing disability on screens and how that compares with what's on there today.

BBC2 25 June 2010 60 minutes

Also included on the disk:

My Family: Wheelie Ben

Controversial episode of the popular sitcom, in which Ben finds himself classed as disabled and takes full advantage of the mistake.

BBC1 9 July 2010

The Force: Rape

This episode follows the work of a specialist rape unit in Portsmouth, the first dedicated unit to be established outside London; in other parts of the country rape is bundled in with other crimes and conviction rates can be as low as five per cent.

Rape is a uniquely difficult crime to solve. It often takes place behind closed doors with no corroborating evidence, and no outside witnesses: all too often it boils down to one person's word against another's.

Can Crystal - a unit of dedicated officers - make a difference?

More4 24 July 2010. 60 minutes

The Blind Me

Growing up is hard enough for most young people, but how different would it be if you couldn't view the world through your eyes. This documentary follows four young blind people on the rollercoaster ride to adulthood as they try to work out what they want from their lives.

Eighteen-year-old Dwight is seeking love and independence, Karen dreams of a career designing jewellery and blind couple Katy and Scott are facing dilemmas about their future together.

BBC3 21 July 2010. 60 minutes

Wild Wales

The Beautiful South

Iolo Williams shares his passion for Welsh wildlife. Filmed over a year, with stunning aerial and wildlife photography, the first episode features the beautiful south of Wales.

Iolo starts in Pembrokeshire with red deer, seals and a rare sighting of red squirrels. In the Brecon Beacons he discovers spectacular waterfalls, amazing cave structures and bats hiding in dungeons, and also nesting hobbies, goshawks and some stunning birds in Glamorgan and Gwent.

The Heart of Wales

Iolo journeys through the heart of Wales to witness extraordinary displays from hen harriers and black grouse. He then heads west to Cardigan Bay to see some colourful lizards, and ends in Aberystwyth with 20,000 starlings.

The Rugged North

Featuring an amazing sequence of an osprey hunting over open water, while visitors at nearby Portmeirion sit unaware of the spectacle before them

BBC2 12-25 July 2010

BEAUTIFUL MINDS

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Who are the modern men and women who will be remembered for the brilliance of their minds? What are their legacies and what can their extraordinary discoveries tell us about the nature of science and the nature of truth?

In the first of a three-part series, Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell describes how she discovered pulsars, the by-products of supernova explosions which make all life in the universe possible. She describes the moments of despair and jubilation as the discovery unfolded and her excitement as pulsars took the scientific world by storm.

Profoundly reflective about the nature of scientific discovery, she shares her thoughts on the connections between religion and science and describes how she see science as a search for understanding rather than a quest for truth.

James Lovelock

Great minds don't think alike. In fact, offbeat thinking has led to some of the greatest scientific discoveries of our age.

In the second of a three-part series uncovering the minds behind some of the greatest scientific discoveries of our age, James Lovelock explains how his maverick way of thinking led him not only to technical breakthroughs in atmospheric detection systems on Earth and Mars, but also to Gaia - a new way of thinking about the Earth as a holistic, self-regulating system.

He tells of his struggle against the scientific consensus of the day, the ridicule of his peers and his passionate belief that the mainstream scientific establishment stifles intellectual creativity.

Sir Tim Hunt

The final part of this series looking at three brilliant contemporary scientists features Sir Tim Hunt, awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the mechanism of how cells divide - a discovery fundamental to the life and growth of every single creature on the planet, as well as a vital clue into the mystery of cancer.

Hunt recalls moments in his life that provided inspiration for his career as a scientist, from his father's intent scholarship which shaped his early methods to his mother's battle with cancer and the influence of this on his current position at Cancer Research UK.

In his own words, Hunt recounts the events that informed his discovery, from chance encounters to life-changing conversations and reveals his own opinions on the thought processes, both logical and emotional, that led to his extraordinary discovery.

BBC4 11-25 April 2010. 3 x 60 minutes. 

Modern Masters

A four part series charting the life and explaining the work of modern artists Picasso, Matisse, Dali and Warhol, and looking at their influence on contemporary art, design and architecture.

BBC1. 2-23 May 2010. 4 x 60 minutes.

The Force: Murder

A woman's body, burned beyond all recognition, is discovered lying in a cornfield on an idyllic summer's day. 

Two days into the case, Hampshire Constabulary know their victim has been strangled, her body carried in a suitcase to a field near a tiny Hampshire village, and then set alight; but not who she or who her killer is.

House-to-house inquiries unearth a witness who's seen a battered Vauxhall being driven slowly around the crime scene, the day before the killing. The offender profilers advise that whoever chose that lonely spot had done so because he knew the area, and a database search of car registrations throws up four names, one of them with a Hampshire bank account.

The chase is on, and as the case unfolds it presents an extraordinary snapshot of Britain in the 21st century - the passions and divisions hidden beneath the placid surface of middle England - and a unique insight into the fragility of modern policing.

More4 24th July 2010. 95 minutes.

Genius of Design: Design for Living

In the crisis-stricken decades of the 1920s and 1930s, with the world at the tipping point between two global wars, design suggested dramatically different ideas about the shape of things to come, from the radical futurism of the Bauhaus to the British love affair with mock-Tudor architecture and the three-piece suite.

In Europe, the 'modern movement' promoted the virtues of the machine and the machine-made with theories and products like open-plan living, the fitted kitchen and tubular steel furniture which have become absorbed into the mainstream of the designed world. In the USA, designers like Raymond Loewy and Henry Dreyfuss explored and exploited the dreams and desires of American consumers to develop a market-based approach to design which has become one of the bedrocks of the modern consumer society. Featuring Niels Diffrient and Tom Dyckhoff.

BBC 2. 14th May 2010. 60 minutes.