Britain at the Bookies

Vale o Escrito - A Guerra do Jogo do Bicho

September 2025 •Portuguese

The "jogo do bicho" (an illegal lottery of numbers) in Rio de Janeiro is controlled by families whose leaders are also patrons of samba schools. Two of these families are experiencing bloody wars of succession.

The Railway: Keeping Britain On Track

September 2025 •English

Documentary series revealing the inner workings of Britain's railways, introducing the track-workers, train guards, drivers, police officers and management teams determined to keep the country moving.

Secret Britain

September 2025 •English

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

Secrets of Britain

September 2025 •English

The enormous popularity of recent British dramas such as Downton Abbey, Mr. Selfridge, and Sherlock, has led to vast interest in the real-life stories and history of the icons of Great Britain. Each episode of this series visits a famous British building or institution to explore its past and present, meeting a wide range of experts and historians along the way.

Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School

September 2025 •English

In a unique experiment, five teachers from China take over the education of fifty teenagers in a Hampshire school to see whether the high-ranking Chinese education system can teach us a lesson.

Secret Society

September 2025 •English

A politically charged mini-series researched and written by Duncan Campbell which saw dramatic Special Branch raids on BBC Scotland. An entire production office was loaded into transit vans and confiscated by the police. + One: 'The Secret Constitution' about secret Cabinet committees that amount to a secret decision making system at the highest levels of power in the United Kingdom. + Two: 'In Time of Crisis' about secret preparations for war that began in 1982 within every NATO country. This programme revealed what Britain would do. + Three: 'A Gap In Our Defences' about bungling defence manufacturers and incompetent military planners who have botched every new radar system that Britain has installed since World War II. + Four: 'We're All Data Now' about the Data Protection Act. + Five: 'Association of Chief Police Officers' and how Government policy and actions are determined in the fields of law and order. + Six: 'Communications' with particular reference to Zircon spy satellites ...

Great British Garden Revival

September 2025 •English

Britain’s rich horticultural history is being lost. More and more front and back gardens are paved over - for development, for parking spaces, or because families don’t have the time or inclination to manage these spaces. The trend for easy-to-maintain lawns, patios and paving has also led to a decline in traditional gardens full of flowers, plants and trees to the extent that some of our most iconic flora and fauna have all but disappeared. Step forward the BBC’s most-loved gardening experts, who are determined to turn us back into a green-fingered nation once again.

Vegas: The Story of Sin City

September 2025 •English

From the 1930s to today, this series examines Vegas' evolution into an entertainment mecca, and its everlasting ability to reflect and refract American identity. Featuring interviews with entertainers, former showgirls, and other experts.

A1: Britain's Longest Road

September 2025 •English

Following the men and women who work around the clock on Britain's longest and most iconic road, ensuring the traffic keeps moving and the public is kept safe.

Important Thing is Love (1971)

September 2025 •English

"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.

Shop Well for Less

September 2025 •English

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.

Hustlers Gamblers Crooks

September 2025 •English

Hustlers Gamblers Crooks features true stories of high-flying hustlers, gamblers and con artists, told by those who lived them. Structured like a Hollywood thriller, it is full of poignant moments. Cheer on these underdogs who risk everything to change their future.

Fifties Features - The Women behind the Pictures

September 2025 •English

A three part series about women working in the British film industry during the 1950s.

Hospital

September 2025 •English

The story of the NHS in unprecedented times.

Britain At War In Colour

September 2025 •English

A Very British Romance with Lucy Worsley

September 2025 •English

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's Biggest Warship

September 2025 •English

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.

A History of Britain

September 2025 •English

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.

Inside Windsor Castle

September 2025 •English

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

The Royal House of Windsor

September 2025 •English

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.