Anteros

A film that looks at the genius of JMW Turner in a new light. There is more to Turner than his sublime landscapes, he also painted machines, science, technology and industry. Turner's life spans the Industrial Revolution, he witnessed it as it unfolded and he painted it. In the process he created a whole new kind of art. The programme examines nine key Turner paintings and shows how we should re- think them in the light of the scientific and Industrial Revolution. Includes interviews with historian Simon Schama and artist Tracey Emin.

Private Pike, Dad's Army

... and ...

Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane

The inspiration for You Rang M’Lord came from the fact that my grandfather was a gentleman’s gentleman, he was a very posh butler to Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane. My dad used to tell me constant stories about his father and the tough hard life they had. The butler was always on the take with the local butcher, fishmonger, taking his bit, and there was an enormous amount of corruption...It was a tough, tough life, it was corruption from start to finish. Taxi drivers always say to me “Oh you write about the good old days”, they weren’t the good old days at all.

In this first episode, historian Dr Lucy Worsley chronicles the Regency's early years, which culminated in victory over Napoleon in 1815, and explores the complicated character of the Prince Regent, a man with legendary appetites for women, food, art and self-indulgence.

Meanwhile, the long war with France was having a huge impact on the British psyche; travel and trade with Europe were impossibly restricted. Lucy follows in the footsteps of painter JMW Turner who, unable to travel to the continent, toured the south coast in 1811 and captured startling images of a country at war.

George liked to think of himself as a man of fashion, and Lucy takes us through surviving accounts from his tailors that reveal his shopaholic ways. These were the years in which the Prince's sometime friend Beau Brummell, the famous dandy, ruled fashionable London like a dictator, and Lucy samples a bit of butch Regency style by trying on some of the fashions he popularised, as well as joining Brummell biographer Ian Kelly on a tour of London's fashionable Regency haunts. She also discovers Brummell's spectacular fall from favour, after loudly referring to the Regent as someone's 'fat friend'.

Lucy visits the battlefield of Waterloo and discovers that the site became a prototype of battlefield tourism - Turner, Byron and many others all visited in the years after the battle and Lucy handles some grisly memorabilia purchased by Lord Byron.

Nelson famously signalled the Battle of Trafalgar with the words: 'England expects that every man will do his duty'. But of the 18,000 sailors fighting for King and Country, 1,400 were not British, with 25 different nationalities in all press-ganged into serving the British King. By analysing the records of warship HMS Bellerophon, this fresh and action-packed account of the famous day reveals their fascinating story.

Documentary evidence proves the Navy recruited hundreds of black sailors, many of them ex-slaves from the West Indies and America. For many, the Royal Navy was the world's first equal opportunities employer, offering freedom, equal pay, and the chance for life-changing promotion.

This film pays tribute to the diverse nationalities that sailed on 21 October 1805, united not by patriotism, but by a unique opportunity for performance-related pay. The Admiralty promised every man at Trafalgar - irrespective of race, creed or colour - a fair share of any captured enemy ships. If they defeated the entire Combined Fleet, even the humblest sailor might become the equivalent of a millionaire.

Between these brave foreigners and a potential fortune, stood the bloodiest battle in naval history, a great storm and the mortal danger of fire, drowning or shipwreck.

Cross posted to anything_aos

"Series exploring British traditions of satire, bawdy and lewd humour begins in the early 18th century and finds in Georgian Britain a nation openly, gloriously and often shockingly rude.

It includes a look at the graphic art of Hogarth, Gillray, Rowlandson and George Cruikshank and the rude theatrical world of John Gay and Henry Fielding. Singer Lucie Skeaping helps show the Georgian taste for lewd and bawdy ballads, and there's a dip into the literary tradition of rude words via the poetry of Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift and Lord Byron, and Lawrence Sterne's novel Tristram Shandy."

Cross posted to anything_aos