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
Sunday Feature: Hepworth And The Cornish Landscape
BBC Radio 3
Sunday 9th February, 7.15pm
In 1939, when the Barbara Hepworth moved to Cornwall, she was already aware of comparisons being made between her sculptures and stone megaliths. Did living in St Ives, close to ancient sites, change and shape her subsequent work? Artists Lally Macbeth and Matthew Shaw explore the relationship between Hepworth’s work and the landscapes of Cornwall.
Call The Midwife
BBC One
Sunday 9th February, 8.05pm
More scenes from life in 1970, a year when the historical records show the bin men went on strike and rubbish piled up in the streets. For the public health workers of Poplar, this isn’t good news because of the risk of disease. Joyce’s patients include a mother facing postnatal complications.
Expedition: Search For The Nile
Channel 5
Sunday 9th February, 9pm
Following their adventures in Antarctica in the steps of Amundsen, Shackleton, and Scott a couple of years back, Ben Fogle and Dwayne Fields are once again in retro-explorer mode. This time around, though, the climate is rather warmer as, in the first episode of a two-parter, the duo retrace the journeys of Dr David Livingstone.
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Miss Austen
BBC One
Sunday 9th February, 9.05pm
Episode two of the drama based on Gill Hornby’s novel and more clues emerge as to why Cassandra Austen might have been anxious to keep the contents of her sister’s letters secret. In flashback scenes, we revisit the Austens’ first encounter with (the fictional) Henry Hobday.
Mussolini: Son Of The Century
Sky Atlantic
Tuesday 11th February, 9pm
Joe Wright’s big-budget drama continues with Mussolini’s power seemingly waning thanks to Italy’s socialists being on the cusp of victory. Except, faced with strikes and unrest, Italy’s landowners and industrialists want help. Who better to turn to than a populist wannabe strongman?
X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story
BBC Radio 4
Tuesday 11th February, 11pm
First broadcast in 2022 and now updated with new material, X Man looks at the life and times of Elon Musk through the prism of his love of science fiction. The first episode, The Dark Knight, takes us back to the 1930s and stories involving a rich man with a cape. Featuring the insights of Harvard historian Jill Lepore.
Word Of God – pick of the week
BBC Radio 4
Wednesday 12th February, 9.30am
In 2017, evangelical billionaire Steve Green was set to open his Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. But then questions began to be asked about how the institution had accumulated more than 40,000 artefacts and, as this seven-part series presented by Ben Lewis recounts, an antiquity-smuggling scandal came to light.
Drama: When Alan Met Ray
BBC Radio 4
Wednesday 12th February, 2.15pm
Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield star as the comedy-writing team Alan Simpson and Ray Galton, famous for their work with Tony Hancock and for creating Steptoe And Son. Andrew McGibbon and Ian Pearce’s drama takes us back to the duo’s first meeting, at a TB sanatorium in Surrey in 1948.
In Our Time
BBC Radio 4
Thursday 13th February, 9am
Melvyn Bragg and learned guests discuss Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536). The youngest child of Spanish royals Ferdinand and Isabella, she married Henry VII’s heir, Arthur, Prince of Wales. But then she found herself widowed and, following a papal dispensation, married Henry VIII during the first days of his reign.
James May’s Great Explorers
Channel 5
Thursday 13th February, 9pm
The affable presenter, ever a man to pursue his interests and trust that he can bring his audience along, profiles a trio of explorers. He begins with Christopher Columbus, whose reputation as an explorer and adventurer doesn’t, it turns out, much impress May.