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
The Documentary: Defeated
BBC World Service
Saturday 12th April, 12.05pm
VE Day, 8 May 1945, was a day of celebration for the Allies. But in Germany, it was a prelude to a period of huge uncertainty. A documentary that draws on the memoirs of ordinary Germans – ranging from a Nazi youth leader to a Jewish Holocaust survivor – to bring the era to life.
Archive On 4: Masters Of The Impossible
BBC Radio 4
Saturday 12th April, 8pm
How does ‘mentalism’, or mind magic, work? Psychologist and magician Professor Richard Wiseman charts the strange history of mentalism. David Berglas, whose stunts included making a piano vanish before hundreds of live concert goers, emerges as a key figure in the story.
Drama: Casino Royale
BBC Radio 4
Easter Sunday 20th April, 3pm
James Bond has been reimagined so many times that it’s all too easy to forget that Ian Fleming’s secret agent made his first bow in 1953. This adaptation from Archie Scottney, starring Toby Stephens as Bond, goes back to the source to find n007 driving a Bentley and battling a Soviet agent, Le Chiffre (Hugh Bonneville).
Pilgrimage: The Road Through The Alps
BBC Two
Easter Sunday 20th April, 9pm
Another group of seven celebrities of different faiths and beliefs embark on a journey in search of spiritual enlightenment. This time around, the trek involves the Austrian Camino, a revived medieval route that takes them into the foothills of the Swiss Alps. Shown over three successive evenings.
Great Lives
BBC Radio 4
Easter Monday 21st April, 3pm
Photographer Kevin Cummins nominates Richey Edwards, who disappeared in 1995 and was officially declared dead in 2008, as someone who lived a great life. Simon Price, biographer of the Manic Street Preachers, offers the expert’s perspective. Matthew Parris presents.
Great British Railway Journeys
BBC Two
Easter Monday 21st April, 6.30pm
Michael Portillo travels from Shrewsbury to Telford in the first of five weekday episodes that find him exploring the Midlands. Highlights in the opening show include the former MP re-enacting the 1403 battle of Shrewsbury, in which rebel Harry Hotspur challenged King Henry IV for the throne of England.
Masters Of Reinvention
U&Yesterday
Easter Monday 21st April, 7pm
Of the Douglas C-47 troop-carriers that took part in Operation Market Garden in 1944, one survives. This documentary follows the restoration of a plane christened Drag ’em Oot so that it can return to Arnhem to take part in celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of the landings at Arnhem.
History’s Secret Heroes
BBC Radio 4
Tuesday 22nd April, 3pm
Dudley Clarke (1899–1974) was a pioneer in military deception who took inspiration from magic tricks. He was also a key figure in the foundation of the British Commandos and the SAS. Helena Bonham Carter narrates a profile of a British eccentric.
Who Do You Think You Are? – pick of the week
BBC One
Tuesday 22nd April, 9pm
The celebrity genealogy series returns with an episode starring British-American film star Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man). It’s a journey into the past that, mournfully, takes in the Holocaust in Poland. Garfield also discovers real-life links to the stories in two Hollywood movies, The Pianist and The Monuments Men.
Nazi Ratlines In Franco’s Madrid
PBS America
Friday 25th April, 7.05pm
As it become increasingly obvious the Allies would win the Second World War, fascists began to look for a way to escape answering for their crimes. So it was, as this documentary recounts, that Spain’s capital became a city to which Nazis and others with far-right affiliations fled, often as a first step towards escaping to Buenos Aires or Cairo.