Directing
Peter Watkins recounts the short-lived, happy period making his classic documentary Culloden and discusses, as he sees it, the tragic decline television has taken since it was made.
On a cold December morning, the limbs of a young man are discovered in Loch Lomond, sparking an international man hunt. The inside story of a macabre murder that shocked Scotland.
A varied history of gay people and Scotland.
Alex Norton discovers how showbusiness has handled the portrayal of the Scottish accent. For over 100 years audiences have struggled to understand our braw brogue: silent Harry Lauder films attempted an accent in the captions, and in Hollywood's golden era , everyone wanted to paint their tonsils tartan- but as examples from Katharine Hepburn, Orson Welles and Richard Chamberlain show, they couldnae. Then Disney made Brave and proved that it disnae have to be all bad!
A dissection of the history and appeal of dinosaur movies.
Schooled in Fife, coming of age in a rock ’n’ roll band, then finding her forte was directing temperamental actors, Cora Bissett is no stranger to theatrical Scottish swearing. So who better to present a celebration of Caledonian cursing? This documentary sees Cora sing, swear and scrutinise why Scotland swears so well. Cora begins with the first hurdle – how does one discuss swear words on the BBC? Aunty Beeb is the institution that has been historically priggish about language - always bleeping words and apologising for those that slipped through. So Cora runs a list past BBC Scotland’s head of editorial standards to see what she can get away with.
50 years after Celtic made history as the first British side to win the European Cup, this film returns to the streets of the city on which the iconic players lived, rediscovering the Glasgow of 1967 in which the legendary team were forged.
Dr Jago Cooper explores the rise and fall of the forgotten civilisations of Central America.
The filming of "The Omen" (1976) was plagued by tragedy and bizarre incidents. "The devil was at work and he didn't want that film made" - Producer Harvey Bernhard.
Nicholas Parsons explores his life-long enthusiasm for clocks when he goes in search of the most valuable and famous watch in the world - the so-called Marie Antoinette.
Explores Gruinard Island’s infamous past as a World War II biological weapons testing site that rendered it uninhabitable – and deadly – for decades.
A look at how the Art Nouveau movement flourished in the burgeoning cities of Europe at the end of the 19th century.
The hunters of the Scottish folklore creature camped out on the shores of the loch throughout the 1970s and 1980s, chasing but never finding the dinosaur-like creature.
How did Greggs steal McDonald's fast food crown and how is McDonald's fighting back? Dani Dyer explores this extraordinary fast food feud.
In 1978, Scotland had a team of brilliant footballers and mercurial manager in Ally MacLeod. Featuring rare archive footage, this is the story of when a nation dared to dream.
After centuries of Bonnie Boats speeding Over the Sea to Skye, in 1995 a new bridge was built between the island and the mainland. Privately funded, this was to be a toll bridge. Not only that, it turned out to be the most expensive toll bridge in Europe.
Scrabble is experiencing a renaissance. The younger generation have rediscovered the game online - through the copyright busting Scrabulous - and they're having night after night on the tiles. Alan Yentob sets out to discover why the word game leaves us spellbound, tracing its surprising history, meeting the American tournament Word Freaks, and paying a visit to the SAS-style training camp that the Nigerian government trains their players at.
