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
Ancient Greece By Train With Alice Roberts
Channel 4
Saturday 22nd March, 8pm
To Athens, where Alice Roberts visits the Sanctuary of Dionysus. Here, it’s said, a man called Thespis gave the world’s first theatrical performance. She also learns about the role of performance in the birth of democracy and meets the Greek minister of culture to discuss the Elgin Marbles.
Archive On 4: Section 28 – Right To Be Gay
BBC Radio 4
Saturday 22nd March, 8pm
Actor and activist Michael Cashman looks back at a hated law that banned the so-called promotion of homosexuality by schools and local authorities. This was legislation with its roots in a confected moral panic over a book called Jenny Lives With Eric And Martin and which has lessons for today.
Dope Girls
BBC One
Saturday 22nd March, 9.15pm
Penultimate episode of the interwar gangster drama and events are coming to the boil. Notably for Kate (Julianne Nicholson), as information about the murder of Silvio comes to light. Meantime, Violet, another woman with plenty to hide, lands herself in a tricky situation.
Great Continental Railway Journeys
BBC Two
Monday 24th March, 6.30pm
It’s Michael Portillo mountain man as the former politician travels the tracks in Switzerland. He begins in Davos, where he discovers its 19th-century history as a place where people visited for the healthy air. Over five weekday episodes, he makes his way to the Swiss Riviera.
War Machine: World War II
PBS America
Monday 24th March, 7.45pm
How did different nations’ industrial capacity affect the outcome of the Second World War? It’s a question considered here over four weeknight episodes. The first three shows deal respectively with the wars on land, at sea and in the air, while the final programme charts how countries competed to control raw materials.
Love And Loss: The Pandemic Five Years On
BBC One
Monday 24th March, 8.30pm
Extraordinary as it seems considering how profoundly Covid shaped our lives for so many months, the pandemic is passing into history. This moving documentary looks back at a time that for many seems seems blurred and strange, focusing in particular on some of the stories of those who lost loved ones.
Drama: Faith, Hope And Glory
BBC Radio 4
Tuesday 25th March, 2.15pm
The Windrush saga following the lives of three families returns. It’s 1988 and a lonely Hopeton is living in his boxing gym. He hopes to get Joy and his family back, but Joy is busy building a new life. Continues on Wednesday and Thursday.
Invisible Hands – pick of the week
BBC Radio 4
Wednesday 26th March, 9.30am
Over six episodes, David Dimbleby traces the story of an idea that changed Britain, especially after the rise of Margaret Thatcher, the free market revolution. The story begins with a Second World War pilot who watched his fellow flyer – and brother – go down in flames. There and then, he vowed to devote his life to the cause of freedom.
I Am Sixteen Going On Sixty
BBC Radio 4
Wednesday 26th March, 3.30pm
Hollywood’s movie version of The Sound Of Music was released in the UK 60 years ago this week. What happened to the film’s child stars? Garry Richardson tracks them down and discovers that one of the Von Trapps, Nicholas Hammond, made a career in film, TV and theatre.
Heart And Soul
BBC World Service
Friday 28th March, 1.30pm
Reporter Shiroma Silva visits Germany to meet with Kai Höss, the grandson of Auschwitz commander Rudolph Höss. Kai, we hear, only learnt about his forebear’s crimes at school. We also learn how a near-death epiphany led to him turning to the Bible. As a pastor, he now travels the world to talk with Jewish communities.