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BBC Two's documentary strand, an annual eight-part series of hour-long films about different aspects of contemporary British life.
2009
From their own double beds, British couples talk with disarming frankness about sex, infidelity, love and marriage, and offer an insight into what makes and breaks a relationship.
The Isle of Skye is a place marked out not just by its rugged Scottish beauty, but also by an extraordinarily high number of reports of ghost experiences. Local crofters, churchmen and policemen are among the myriad witnesses who claim to have seen a ghostchild, a headless woman, a strange light, or the island's most famous phantom - a ghost car that approaches before evaporating into the night. With the memory of his deceased wife Nina still fresh in his mind, former missionary Donald Angus Maclean has set himself up as a collector of the island's ghost stories. As he investigates the strange and sometimes sinister tales, it's revealed that he too is haunted - not by visions of disappearing cars or headless women, but by the memory of his dead wife.
How has life played out for those endowed with the nation's biggest brains, the previous winners of quiz show University Challenge? After university, is it easy to put those brains to good use? For some there's a pleasure in simply being brainy. 'I'm very happy being clever. In fact one of the abiding pleasures of my life is the things my mind can do,' says 2002 winner Luke Pitcher. For others, having the kind of mind capable of winning University Challenge is as much a curse as a blessing. 'People don't like intelligent people - they like successful people, but they don't like intelligent people', declares Thor Halland, member of the 2003 winning team. 'The problem with a lot of my life', reveals 1968 winner Pamela Maddison, 'is that I've had to dumb myself down.' From the champion who was drunk when his team won to the brilliant polymath who now works as a postman, the film unravels the lives and careers of Britain's brainiest.
The documentary series follows the fate of a litter of puppies born in east London. Often called `devil dogs' by the media, the Staffordshire bull terrier crosses are one of the most sought-after breeds in the country, yet are also the most frequently abandoned. As their owner tries to find new homes for them, the film examines the people behind the headlines of hoodies, knife crime and dangerous dogs.
Nine very different adults are brought together to face a challenge that has always defeated them - learning to swim. Instructor Linda has seen it all before. She knows that most of the women will be petrified of getting their hair and faces wet, the men will be embarrassed by their lack of prowess, and all of them will probably have to conquer demons that run much deeper than a fear of water. Fifty-six-year-old Sandy from Southend-on-Sea is enthusiastic to begin with, but at the end of the second week, still reluctant to get her face wet and asking for armbands, Sandy reveals stories of a cosseted childhood that still haunts her adult years - the girl who was never allowed to play with other children has become the woman who hides behind an ever present mask of make-up.
Like many elderly people, 80-year-old former concert pianist Pauline is in need of some help and care. Unlike most other elderly people, however, Pauline is marooned in an ocean of clutter inside her five-bedroom South London house. For much of her life Pauline has been unable to throw things out, anything at all; even coat hangers, newspapers or old advertising leaflets. Far from being depressed about this, however, Pauline is resolutely cheerful in her own chaos and - even as she witnesses an 'avalanche' of papers collapsing down her staircase - stubbornly resistant to the attempts of her middle-aged son Frederick to sort out her life. When Frederick moves in to take on the task, he assumes it will be a fortnight's work - but it soon becomes clear that getting his mother's home in shape is not something that can be done in a few days.
Documentary film about love, time and the astonishing ability of music to return people who were thought lost. Ted's wife Hilda doesn't know who he is any more: she no longer has the ability to recognise even those closest to her. Ted, a devoted husband of 50 years, calls her his 'lovely little stranger'. There's one thing she has not forgotten: the tune to Que Sera, Sera. Ted and Hilda are members of Singing for the Brain, a group of singers in Bristol made up of Alzheimer's sufferers and their spouses. As the group bursts into song, an extraordinary thing happens. People who may not even recognise their own partner find the words of a song learnt half a century earlier, and suddenly -- just for the time it takes to sing a few verses -- it is impossible to tell who is the Alzheimer's patient and who is the carer.
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