Fifties Features - The Women behind the Pictures

An immersive 360-degree narrative telling the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. Featuring testimony from nearly 80 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides.

The story of the NHS in unprecedented times.

A major political, historical, human and economic fact of the 20th century, the Gulag, the extremely punitive Soviet concentration camp system, remains largely unknown.

Lucy Worsley delves into the history of romance to uncover the forces shaping our very British happily ever after and how our feelings have been affected by social, political and cultural ideas.

Britain At War In Colour

Comedian Lenny Henry sets out on a journey to discover what makes us laugh and what role humour plays in our lives

A look at life in Windsor Castle over the last 80 years, including the tragedies, triumphs, romances and scandals of the Royal Family.

Archival footage and interviews with historians mark this fascinating documentary on the 1950s, based on David Halberstam's bestseller. Among the subjects covered: work and the family; the impact of TV; the Cold War; and the beginnings of the civil-rights movement and the sexual revolution.

Del Miño al Bidasoa

Drawing on newly available evidence, this epic series explores the Windsor dynasty's gripping family saga, providing fresh insights into how our royal family have survived four generations of crisis.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is the largest and most advanced warship ever constructed in Britain. As she embarks on gruelling sea trials we see ship and crew pushed to breaking point.

In Travels with Agatha with Sir David Suchet, the actor will replicate Poirot author Christie’s journey, which spanned former British Empire territories Canada, Hawaii, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia as part of a trade mission. Each episode will feature one of the five countries.

Dr Xand Van Tulleken and Raksha Dave investigate the Great Smog of 1952 - the deadliest environmental disaster ever recorded and one of the world's worst peacetime catastrophes. Lasting just over four days, the Great Smog plunged London into a terrifyingly murky gloom - the acrid pollution seeping into homes, leaving Londoners gasping for breath, shutting down transport and emergency services, and overwhelming hospitals and undertakers alike.

Mirrorball is a documentary series showcasing the work of several music video directors.

A mission to help families change the way they shop - without changing their lifestyle. A host of money-saving tips and tricks to put hard-earned cash back in people's pockets.

Exploring the hidden corners of the UK in search of the best the countryside has to offer.

Tony Robinson goes for a walk through some of Britain's beautiful and historic landscapes.

"It's queer, it's kinky" - the average man on the street might find lesbianism strange, but for the women interviewed in this surprisingly nuanced TV documentary, it's just an ordinary part of their lives. The women - butch, femme and everything in between - articulately discuss their lives, experiences and struggles with everyday discrimination, busting the myths that homosexuality is a disease and that gay women are doomed to loneliness. Among the interviewees are Esme Langley (speaking outside in woolly hat and coat), founder of the Minorities Research Group, Charlotte Wolff, a psychotherapist and sexologist whose 1971 book Love Between Women offered some of the first serious research into lesbianism, and Doreen Cordell, a social worker with the Albany Trust, a charity providing counselling and support to the LGBT community.

Fred Dibnah reveals the genius, the vision and the sheer bloody graft that went into creating some of Britain's greatest national monuments. All six episodes look at Britain's architectural heritage. In 'Mighty Cathedrals' Fred examines the innovations in building techniques which allowed the Normans to build some of the nation's most remarkable cathedrals. 'The Art of Castle Building' has Fred take a look at the castles of the North Wales coastline. 'The Age of the Carpenter' sees Fred learn all about the way that carpenters have used their skills to transform medieval castles into homes. In 'Scottish Style' Fred visits Glamis Castle and learns about the Scottish Baronial Style. 'Building the Canals' has Fred visit Bolton and learn about the construction of the first canals. Finally, 'Victorian Splendour' sees Fred looking at the achievements of architects in the 19th century and discovering the story behind the building of the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben.

Stretching from the Stone Age to the year 2000, Simon Schama's Complete History of Britain does not pretend to be a definitive chronicle of the turbulent events which buffeted and shaped the British Isles. What Schama does do, however, is tell the story in vivid and gripping narrative terms, free of the fustiness of traditional academe, personalising key historical events by examining the major characters at the centre of them. Not all historians would approve of the history depicted here as shaped principally by the actions of great men and women rather than by more abstract developments, but Schama's way of telling it is a good deal more enthralling as a result. Schama successfully gives lie to the idea that the history of Britain has been moderate and temperate, passing down the generations as stately as a galleon, taking on board sensible ideas but steering clear of sillier, revolutionary ones. Nonsense. Schama retells British history the way it was--as bloody, convulsive, precarious, hot-blooded and several times within an inch of haring off onto an entirely different course. Schama seems almost to delight in the goriness of history. Themes returned to repeatedly include the wars between the Scots and the Irish and the Catholic/Protestant conflicts--only the Irish question remains unresolved by the new millennium. As Britain becomes a constitutional monarchy, Schama talks less of Kings and Queens but of poets and idea-makers like Orwell. Still, with his pungent, direct manner and against an evocative visual and aural backdrop, Schama makes history seem as though it happened yesterday, the bloodstains not yet dry.