Composer of the Week (9.00 am, R3 and rest of week) is Vivaldi.
Start the Year (9.00 am R4). Recorded at the Royal Society of Arts, a balloon debate with geneticist Steve Jones, Shakespearean scholar Jonathan Bate, theatre director Jude Kelly and Ann Widdecombe nominating the hero/heroine they consider most suitable for 2001. (Never mind Start the Year – isn’t anyone celebrating the fact that this is the proper first day of the twenty-first century?)
Work in Progress (10.00 am R3 and rest of week). Daniel Libeskind, architect.
Endurance (12 noon C4). Leslie Woodhead and Bud Greenspan’s 1998 film about long-distance runner Haile Gebrsellasie.
Music Around the World (from 12.40 R3). Radio 3 does its duty to the music of the rest of the world, with live broadcasts from Australia, Japan, Java, Tibet, Georgia, Armenia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Portugal, Cuba, Brazil and the US, and a finale (after a performance of Bernstein’s On the Town (7.00) in London.
The Real Macbeth (4.55 C4). Historical investigation conducted by Tony Robinson. Followed by the RSC production of Shakespeare’s play (6.05 C4), starring Anthony Sher and Harriet Walter.
UK Confidential (5.20 BBC2). What the latest declassified information from the Public Records Office (about 1970) reveals. Brian Walden, Peter Snow and Edwina Currie look back at the last days of a Wilson government and the early day’s of Heath’s, with "exclusive" access to the once secret files.
Making Animal Babies (6.25 BBC1). On breeding animals in captivity.
Tourists of the Revolution (10.00 am BBC Knowledge, also 1.00, 4.00, 7.00). Repeats of Daniel Wolf’s excellent series from last winter begin with the Brits who thought fascism in Italy and Germany was a good thing in the 1920s and 1930s.
Victorian Week: The Victorian Roadshow (7.30 BBC2). The upcoming centenary of Queen Victoria’s death celebrated in a BBC2 season starting with a programme about Victorian inventions (featuring, of course, Adam Hart-Davis). This is followed by Victoria and the Jubilee (8.30 BBC2), which looks at the pomp and pageantry of 100 years ago (which apparently Victoria herself wasn’t too keen on). More programmes on Tuesday and Thursday.
Nick’s Quest: In Search of the Polar Bear (8.00 C5). Wildlife documentary from the western shores of Hudson Bay, and towards the north Pole.
Destination Space (9.00 National Geographic). Astronauts, scientists and entrepreneurs on the possibilities of living extraterrestrially.