Bbc 2020

Made across six months in the run-up to publication of The Mirror and the Light, the final book in Hilary Mantel’s Booker-winning Tudor trilogy on the life of Thomas Cromwell, this film enjoys exclusive and extensive access to one of the world’s greatest living writers, delving into Mantel's past and present as she describes a vivid imagination active from an early age and recounts with candour a tale of growing up with a dark family secret.q

With unprecedented access, this series goes inside the Bank of England during 2018 as it navigates turbulent economic times – including the challenges posed by Brexit.

Darcey Bussell and Ore Oduba introduce Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling from the Royal Ballet. Based on the true story of the death of Crown Prince Rudolf and his young mistress Mary Vetsera in 1889, Steven McRae and Sarah Lamb take on these challenging roles in a dark and intense ballet.

Inside the secret world of Sergei Pugachev, a Russian oligarch, and his British partner Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, mother to their three children. Filmed between the UK, France and Russia, this film sets out to tell the story of their Russian romance, unimaginable wealth and privileged lifestyle. Sergei, once known as Putin’s banker, amassed a $15 billion fortune, owning one of Russia’s largest private banks, shipyards, a coal mine and designer brands, until his fall from favour with the president. With his empire now at risk from the Russian government and threats made to his life, Sergei flees to his chateau in France in a bid to fight back.

Across the UK, bus use has plummeted in recent years. Outside the capital, thousands of routes have been cut and bus pass use is down. The prime minister has pledged billions to revitalise the bus network, but is it enough? Panorama's Richard Bilton travels coast to coast across the north of England to see the reality of Britain’s battered bus network. From rising fares, congestion and abandoned services to hi-tech, green buses and overcrowding, Panorama finds out what people want to see changed.

The Sky at Night celebrates its 800th episode while filming takes place under the coronavirus lockdown. Chris Lintott explores how some astronomers are managing to continue making observations by controlling telescopes as far away as Hawaii from a laptop in their bedrooms in Belfast. Maggie Aderin-Pocock investigates how members of the public can get involved in analysing data from Mars, even when they are confined to their homes. And Pete Lawrence points out some treats in the night sky that we can all see if we keep looking up even when we’re locked down. Plus a treat from the archives of the last 799 episodes set to a specially commissioned new arrangement of the show's famous theme tune.

Pornography is illegal in South Korea and 'molka' has emerged as an illicit DIY alternative. The devastating impact of molka is revealed in the increasing number of molka-related suicides. Now, criminal gangs are starting to install cameras on an industrial scale, selling people’s most private moments as pornography for strangers to consume. The country’s advanced technology allows criminals to stream videos live and share them at lightning speeds. Can those fighting molka stay ahead of this quickly evolving crime? And are the ingredients that have made molka an epidemic in South Korea a warning sign for a sex crime that could soon affect us here?

Gregg Wallace is in Cornwall at an enormous bakery where they produce 180,000 Cornish pasties a day. He follows the production of the pastry snacks from the arrival of two tonnes of swedes right through to dispatch. Gregg learns that there are very specific rules to creating a Cornish pasty. They must be made in Cornwall, the filling can only contain onion, potato, swede, beef and some seasoning - and each ingredient must be cooked from raw within the pastry parcel.

Sir Ian McKellen reads the poetry, Michael Wood traces the journey on the ground. Together they conjure up the extraordinary life, times and words of China’s greatest poet, Du Fu. From the Yellow River to the Yangtze Gorges, and down to the forested hills of Hunan, Michael Wood travels in the footsteps of China’s most-loved poet. Born in 712, the age of Beowulf in Britain, Du Fu lived through the violent fall of China’s brilliant Tang dynasty. As rebel armies sacked the capital, and floods and famine wrecked the country, he was forced to flee, taking his family on the roads as refugees.

Documentary series in which Waldemar Januszczak sets out to uncover the secret meanings hidden in four famous paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Seurat.