17:57 – Opening music.
18:00 – Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity – Episode 2: The Age of Invention – Radio Times: “Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the electrifying story of our quest to master nature’s most mysterious force – electricity. Until fairly recently, electricity was seen as a magical power, but it is now the lifeblood of the modern world and underpins every aspect of our technological advancements. Without electricity, we would be lost. This series tells of dazzling leaps of imagination and extraordinary experiments – a story of maverick geniuses who used electricity to light our cities, to communicate across the seas and through the air, to create modern industry and to give us the digital revolution.
“Just under 200 years ago scientists discovered something profound, that electricity is connected to another of nature’s most fundamental forces – magnetism. In the second episode, Jim discovers how harnessing the link between magnetism and electricity would completely transform the world, allowing us to generate a seemingly limitless amount of electric power which we could utilise to drive machines, communicate across continents and light our homes. This is the story of how scientists and engineers unlocked the nature of electricity in an extraordinary century of innovation and invention.” First broadcast on Thu 13th October 2011 at 21:00 by BBC4.
18:59 – The Sixties S01E02 – The World on the Brink – A documentary miniseries, produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman’s studio Playtone, this 10-part series chronicled events and popular culture of the United States during the 1960s. In this episode, events of the Cold War in the 1960s, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. First broadcast on Thu 5th June 2014 by CNN.
19:39 – The Day the Universe Changed – 3. Point of View – A personal view by James Burke in ten parts. Radio Times: “In the early 15th century most people thought the earth was flat. Then some social climbers from Florence went on a cultural package tour to Greece, while a Florentine architect tried his hand at painting, and the result was a new kind of geometry which was to change the world. Art and architecture were transformed almost overnight. Town planning was born. And as the earth itself began to change shape, came an earth-shattering discovery in the Atlantic…” First broadcast on Tue 2nd April 1985 at 8.00pm by BBC1.
20:30 – James Burke & Dallas Campbell: The Voyager – A little five-minute extra for a couple of people who missed it the first time I showed it. From the 2019 Bluedot Festival, author & TV presenter Dallas Campbell, in conversation with an 82-year-old James Burke, discuss The Greatest Shot in Television™. Last shown on CaBTV on Thu 7th April at 21:00.
20:34 – FILM: The Magdalene Sisters (2002) – a drama film written and directed by Peter Mullan, about young women and even teenage girls who were sent to Magdalene asylums (also known as ‘Magdalene Laundries’); homes for women who were labelled as “fallen” by their families or society, considered sinners who needed to be redeemed. The homes were maintained by individual religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. Set in 1964, four young women – Margaret (raped by her cousin), Bernadette (too beautiful and coquettish), Rose (an unmarried mother) and Crispina (an intellectually disabled unmarried mother) – are forced by their families or caretakers into the Magdalene asylum. The film details the disastrous lives of the four girls whilst they are inmates, portraying their harsh daily regimen and their squalid living conditions at the laundries. Content warning: some of this film is quite distressing. It’s bloody good, though, and everyone should know about the history of these horrific places.
22:29 – Bill Bailey – Cosmic Jam – Bill Bailey’s debut live stand-up show, filmed at The Bloomsbury Theatre, London, in 1996.
23:49 – Closedown music (unless I decide to chuck something else on).
23:53 – Closedown (likewise).