Faith School Menace

Professor Richard Dawkins calls on us to reconsider the consequences of faith education, which, he believes, indoctrinates and divides children, and bamboozles parents

The number of faith schools in Britain is rising. Around 7,000 publicly-funded schools - one in three - now has a religious affiliation.

As the coalition government paves the way for more faith-based education by promoting 'free schools', the renowned atheist and evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins says enough is enough.

In this passionately argued film, Dawkins calls on us to reconsider the consequences of faith education, which, he argues, bamboozles parents and indoctrinates and divides children.

The film features robust exchanges with former Secretary of State for Education Charles Clarke, Head of the Church of England Education Service Reverend Janina Ainsworth, and the Chair of the Association of Muslim Schools, Dr Mohammed Mukadam.

It also features insights from child psychologists and key players in faith education as well as insights from both parents and pupils.

Dawkins also draws on his own personal history as a father, arguing that the government must stop funding new faith schools, and urges society to respect a child's right to freedom of belief.

More4 19th August 2010 60 minutes

The Man Who Shot The Sixties

A look at the work of Brian Duffy, who passed away in May 2010.

Duffy was one of the greatest photographers of his generation. Along with David Bailey and Terence Donovan he defined the image of the 1960s and was as famous as the stars he photographed. In the 1970s he suddenly disappeared from view and burned all his negatives. Filmed on the eve of the first-ever exhibition of his work, Duffy agrees to talk about his life, his work and why he made it all go up in flames.

BBC4 14th January 2010 60 minutes

Mark Lawson Talks To...Tracy Emin

Mark Lawson talks to the enfant terrible of the British art world, Tracey Emin, famed for her unmade bed and the tent embroidered with the names of everyone she had ever slept with. The 1990s wild child talks in detail about her unconventional childhood and the traumatic adolescent experiences which inspired much of her controversial work.

BBC4. 14th March 2010. 60 minutes

Paul Merton's Weird and Wonderful World of Silent Cinema

Paul Merton goes in search of the origins of screen comedy in the forgotten world of silent cinema - not in Hollywood, but closer to home in pre-1914 Britain and France.

Revealing the unknown stars and lost masterpieces, he brings to life the pioneering techniques and optical inventiveness of the virtuosos who mastered a new art form. With a playful eye and comic sense of timing, Merton combines the role of presenter and director to recreate the weird and wonderful world that is early European cinema in a series of cinematic experiments of his own.

BBC4. 29th April 2010. 60 minutes

Henry Moore: A Culture Show Special

A one-hour special on one of the most important and popular British sculptors of the twentieth century, Henry Moore. Presented by Alan Yentob, the programme takes a unique approach to Moore by examining his life on film.

Long before Andy Warhol, Henry Moore embraced the medium of TV and film as a way of showing off his works. His rise to fame in the post-war period is intimately linked to his appearances on programmes like Monitor, Face to Face, The Ascent of Man and even Nationwide. His gentle, salt of the earth persona helped people to accept his radical and progressive art.

The film also looks at the man behind the media image, as Alan Yentob meets the people who knew Moore: his daughter Mary Moore, former studio assistants Sir Anthony Caro and Richard Wentworth, and fan Antony Gormley.

BBC2. 18th March 2010. 60 minutes

Aristotle's Island

In the 4th century BC the Greek philosopher Aristotle travelled to Lesvos, an island in the Aegean teeming, then as now, with wildlife. His fascination with what he found there, and his painstaking study of it, led to the birth of a new science - biology. Professor Armand Leroi follows in Aristotle's footsteps to discover the creatures, places and ideas that inspired the philosopher in his pioneering work.

BBC4. 16th January 2010. 60 minutes.

Domesday

In this programme on the Domesday Book, Dr Stephen Baxter, medieval historian at King's College, London, reveals the human and political drama that lies within the parchment of England's earliest surviving public record. He also finds out the real reason it was commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086.

The Domesday Book is the first great national survey of England, a record of who owned every piece of land and property in the kingdom. It also records the traumatic impact of the Norman conquest on Anglo-Saxon England, the greatest social and political upheaval in the country's history.

Most historians believe that Domesday is some kind of tax book for raising revenue, but Baxter has his own theory. He proves that the Domesday Book could not have been used to collect taxes and he argues that it is about something far more important than money. Its real purpose was to confer revolutionary new powers on the monarchy in Norman England.

BBC2. 10th August 2010. 60 minutes