BBC Four

Marking the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth in 1770, a documentary series that focuses on the real, complex and often difficult man behind the great composer.

Legend has it that Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's first female pharaoh, sent ships to the land of Punt. Cheryl Ward sets out to recreate the voyage, in search of this mythical land.

Comics Britannia is a three-part documentary series from BBC Four which started on 10 September 2007. It was then repeated on BBC Two starting on 19 July 2008. The series looks at the history of the British comic and is also the centre of a Comics Britannia season.

Dawn French, interviews her favorite comediennes and asks about their upbringing, family life, entree into comedy, routines for generating material, whether they hang out with other funny people, comedic influences, professional jealousy and how being funny affects one's love life. The series began as three episodes comprised of clips from 36 interviewees, but returned four months later with these six full-length interviews of Whoopi Goldberg, Catherine Tate, Kathy Burke, Julie Walters, Victoria Wood and Joan Rivers. —Samb Hicks

Ceramics are one of the oldest and most-fundamental art forms around. Ceramics are used for everything from eating and drinking to celebrating birth, marriage or even death. Many people believe that ceramics contain social DNA and reveal about the taste and habits of a nation. This three-part series explores the history of the art form in Britain, beginning in Tudor times, and traces the evolution of different techniques and styles used in the art of pottery. The programme also explores key figures who helped put British ceramics on the map and revolutionised the industry.

Dr Adam Rutherford explores the consequences of one of the biggest scientific projects of all time - the decoding of the entire human genome.

Documentary series exploring the history of photography - from daguerreotype to digital, from portraits to photo-journalism, from art to advertising.

In an absorbing study, Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the story of a national art that conveys passion, precision, hope and renewal. He juxtaposes escapism with control and a deep affinity with nature against love for the machine. The fascinating story takes us from the towering cathedral of Cologne, the woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer and paintings of Grünewald to the gothic fairytale Neuschwanstein Castle, the Baltic landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich and the industrialisation lent expression of Adolph Menzel and Käthe Kollwitz. As the series progresses, it presents a rare focus on the cultural impact of Hitler's obsession with visual art, reveals how art became an arena for the Cold War and examines the redemptive work of the "visionary" Joseph Beuys – the most influential artist of modern times.

Simon Russell Beale presents a radical reappraisal of the place of the symphony in the modern world and explores the surprising way in which it has shaped our history and identity.

Part quiz, part panel show which celebrates the UK's unique and fascinating museums.

When we look around our homes, sheds and garages we see an array of household objects that with one click of a button or twist of a knob will spring to life, and - most of the time - do exactly what we want them to. But how on earth do these objects work? To find out, James May (fuelled by endless cups of tea) heads into his workshop with thousands of little pieces to assemble some of our most beloved and recognisable objects from scratch to see what it actually takes to get them to work.

This 3 part series is presented by the British Art Critic, Andrew Graham-Dixon. He explores the Low Countries of the Netherlands and Belgium and how history has influenced the area's art, architecture and culture. Cloth was used in the area's first expression of art in the making of tapestries going back to the 14 th century. They were the No. 1 luxury item of the day. The Low Countries were well placed geographically for markets for their art.

In a landmark 7-part series, Spotlight - Northern Ireland’s leading team of investigative journalists - reveal important new discoveries about the conflict known as the Troubles, in the 50th anniversary of the deployment of British troops to Northern Ireland.

Through this three part series Art Historian Dr Janina Ramirez tells the story of the Medieval monarchy as preserved through stunning illuminated manuscripts from the British Library's Royal Manuscripts collection.

Birds Britannia is a four-part BBC Four television series about the birds of the United Kingdom, first shown in 2010. It was produced by Stephen Moss. Each of the four, sixty-minute episodes concentrates on one kind of bird: garden birds, waterbirds, seabirds and birds of the countryside. The series has no presenter, and is narrated by the Scottish actor Bill Paterson, with filmed interviews with a wide range of experts and bird enthusiasts, including David Attenborough, Mark Cocker, Jeremy Mynott, Tim Birkhead, Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall, Christopher Frayling, Kate Humble, Rob Lambert, Desmond Morris, David Lindo, Helen Macdonald, Andrew Motion, Tony Soper, and Bill Oddie. It has been announced that a book of the same title, by Stephen Moss, will be published by Collins in April 2011.

The Great Outdoors was a British television sitcom. The show follows the friendships of a misfit rambling club in Southern England in which patronising group-leader Bob becomes embroiled in a battle of wills against new arrival and deputy group-leader Christine, who is determined that things should be done her way. She previously lived and rambled in Barnstaple and appears to perhaps be autistic and have an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. The show comprised three episodes, first airing on Wednesdays between 28 July and 12 August 2010 on BBC Four.

Newswipe with Charlie Brooker was a British news review programme broadcast on BBC Four written and presented by Charlie Brooker. It is similar to Brooker's Screenwipe series which is also shown on BBC Four. A first series of six episodes ran between 25 March 2009 and 29 April 2009. A second series began on 19 January 2010 and concluded on 23 February 2010.

Quiz show hosted by Marcus Du Sautoy who poses the trickiest puzzles to bend the minds of the team members Kathy Sykes, Irving Finkel, Jim Al-Khalili and Richard Vranch.

The often-hilarious stories of the BBC's first 50 years. The corporation's pioneers describe its evolution – which was often by accident rather than design.

Documentary series about Albert Kahn's photographic Archive of the Planet. For a quarter of a century, Kahn supplied a team of photographers with the world's first colour camera system and dispatched them across the globe. Their films and 72,000 photographs offer a unique insight into the formative years of the 20th Century.