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The BBC will be going pop art mad in late August, with a season of programmes. These include A Brief
History of Graffiti (BBC Four, August), presented by Professor Richard Clay, who embarks on a journey that takes us from a 30,000-year-old drawing found in the Caves D’Arcy in central France through to the contemporary street art of Banksy. Clay’s overarching question is whether there’s a connection between messages daubed on walls in different eras.
Radio highlights include an edition of Open Country (Radio 4, Thursday 13 August) that focuses on Jersey as a stronghold for Neanderthals in western Europe. More Neanderthal artefacts, we learn, have been found on the island than in the rest of the British Isles combined. On BBC Radio Wales, and also available via BBC iPlayer Radio, Jewels from
Llandudno (Saturday 15 August) tells the story of Wartski jewellers, which was started 150 years ago in north Wales by a Russian-Jewish émigré. Expect tales of royal weddings and Fabergé eggs.
For those with satellite TV, renowned director Ric Burns’s
New York (PBS America, weekdays from Monday 17 August) tells the story of the city that never sleeps, beginning back in the days when the Big Apple was a Dutch trading post, Neu Amsterdam. Also on PBS America, Islam: Empire of
Faith (starts Wednesday 19 August) explores the rise of Islamic power and faith during the religion’s first 1,000 years.