Moving pictures

Consider this our annual What's On TV for hipsters service, as we count down the most notable - one hesitates to say 'best', we just got the Radio Times and Digiguide out and cherrypicked - music-related output on telly and radio over the next two weeks.

SATURDAY 18th
10:50 C4 Koko Pop
Don't you get the impression that this series was commissioned so they could use that title?

11:20 C4 T4 Movie Special: Burlesque
This is a new film starring Mail-baiting Christina Aguilera, a woman who fails to 'get it' on an increasingly regular basis, and Cher, who's been building up to this for years and years. The word 'campy' turns up in a lot of its American reviews, which is all the dire warning you need.

12:20 Sky Arts 1 Led Zeppelin
From limited clues and Googling we think this is a four song set (Communication Breakdown, Dazed And Confused, Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, How Many More Times) recorded for Danish telly in 1969 while touring their debut album.

13:00 Radio 2 Pick Of The Pops
Firstly 1974, a vintage year for Christmas hits with Showaddywaddy's Hey Mister Christmas, Gilbert O'Sullivan's Christmas Song, the Goodies' Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me, Wombling Merry Christmas and Mud at number one. Vintage as in Christmas songs, not for quality. The Rubettes at 3 too. Then 1990, which with Ice Ice Baby at number one and two Righteous Brothers re-releases in the top ten isn't a vintage year for anything.

19:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: The Number Of The Beast
Sky Arts have the rights to show a few of these Classic Albums documentaries looking back at the making and impact of assorted albums, with their somewhat scattershot picks. Says here this one was directed by Tim Kirkby, who usually works overseeing comedy (Look Around You, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle). There's a joke there somewhere.

20:00 BBC4 The Christmas Session
A trad folk super-line-up of Bellowhead, the Unthanks, Thea Gilmore, Jim Moray, Jon Boden, Lisa Knapp and some other people gathered at the not exactly consecrated sounding Shoreditch Town Hall last year to do Christmas songs amid Victoriana.

21:00 ITV2 The Xtra Factor: Winner's Story 2010
The first ITV reality pop show, Popstars, ended with the only live programme of the series in which Hear'Say found out on the spot (though doubtless they could have guessed) that they had a number one single. Funnily enough, they're not doing it with X Factor winners these days after last year. The market seems horribly split for the official voice of anti-Cowell protest, which might be why at time of writing Cardle is pissing it, with the 4'33" remake getting the newspaper coverage and Surfin' Bird the DJ support and Facebook under the radar numbers. The Family Guy apologists held a rally on Brighton pier on the day the Cage Against The Machine recording took place, and we were hoping the latter might have sent a deputation down to stage a surrealist reimagining of the mods vs rockers fights.

21:00 Sky Arts 1 Status Quo Live in Montreux
Back in the 80s a Mike Smith/Gary Davies-level Radio 1 name would be sent by BBC TV to Montreux to link coverage of the festival at which all the day's big names played. Whether this, recorded last year, is another part of the decade's ongoing renaissance we can't say for sure.

23:20 ITV1 Sting Live In Berlin
In September on the horribly named Symphonicity tour, Sting and Police songs rewritten for philharmonic orchestra.

23:55 ITV2 Celebrity Juice: JLS Special
Keith Lemon, a character Leigh Francis has been running primarily with for some years now with plenty of TV slots and series and yet still isn't anywhere near as popular as at least four of his earlier creations, hosts a show that features Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby taking jokes about body parts and sex for half an hour at a time, here joined by all the members of JLS for same. Meanwhile, libraries close.


SUNDAY 19th
10:00 BBC1 Fern Britton Meets...Sir Cliff Richard
Cliff's been in the business for five decades now, we're pretty used to the idea of him being a clean living Christian by now, yet synopses for appearances such as this always feel it worth highlighting.

11:00 Radio 2 Weekend Wogan
And speaking of Gilbert O'Sullivan, here he is as a guest. Is there a revival pending?

16:00 Radio 1 The Official Chart
It's deliberately forgotten that Joe McElderry's The Climb ended up selling more than three quarters of a million copies/downloads, a figure only one track released in 2010 has managed. So no, you won't 'win' as such.

16:00 6 Music Sir Peter Blake
Could only ever be a Jarvis stand-in.

17:15 Sky Arts 1 Made in Sheffield
Well received 2002 documentary about Sheffield's emergence as the central city for electronic pop. Phil Oakey and his girls, Heaven 17, lesser members of ABC and Cabaret Voltaire, Jarvis and Peel all contribute.

18:10 Sky Arts 1 Iconoclasts
Not a word most would use to describe either Eddie Vedder or a surfer, Laird Hamilton. They're here together.

19:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Electric Ladyland

19:40 Watch Top Of The Pops Christmas 2009
The concept of instant nostagia is just taking the piss these days.

20:00 6 Music 6 Mix
A shared takeover by Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry and some people whose current album he guests on, The National's Aaron and Bryce Dessner.

21:00 BBC4 Soul Noel
Beverley Knight, Carleen Anderson, Soweto Kinch, Ola Onabule, the Golden Gate Quartet, Bryn Christopher and the ever present London Community Gospel Choir give the carol book a gospel, soul and reggae going over.

23:15 ITV2 Kerry Katona - The Next Chapter
What? Does she actually not understand life without a documentary camera crew around any more?

23:30 Sky Movies Family Spice World: The Movie
The slow disappearance of the Spice Girls from pop culture - so when was the last time you heard them on the radio? - has redeemed this as 'a bit of fun', from its previous position of 'a lot of people you like embarrassing themselves'.

23:45 BBC4 Festivals Britannia
First shown tomorrow night, a ninety minute walk through the development of the great British musical gathering from jazz festivals through counter-culture happenings, Isle Of Wight, Donington and rave culture through to Festival Republic.


MONDAY 20th
01:15 BBC4 Radiohead At Glastonbury 1997
A classic, of course, and very rarely seen in full. Funny thing is, in the immediate wake of that famously muddy festival - probably the one that inspired the annual jibes, actually - it was widely reported that Beck was the star turn of Glasto '97, turning up halfway through a wet Friday and, all then agreed, bringing a hyperkinetic glow to the day. And this year, what did the NME claim was one of the ten worst Glastonbury sets of all time, in a list that featured Primal Scream's petulance, booed off 2005 set among the best five? Got it in one. (It was because he wore a white suit for part of the set, you understand).

19:00 Radio 1 Festive Festival
Tremendously alliterative title for Zane Lowe and Nick Grimshaw's get together, this year featuring sets from Adele, Bullet For My Valentine, James Blake, Katy B, The Vaccines, Yuck, Wretch 32 and DJ sets from Toddla T, Benji B and Jaymo and Andy George.

19:00 6 Music Marc Riley
All week except Tuesday, as you'll see, and Friday, when he's not on, the best sessions of the year.

22:00 Radio 2 Kirsty Maccoll: A Tribute
Kirsty was killed ten years ago on the 18th. Billy Bragg hosts a celebration of her life, including part of a Radio 2 documentary she made about Cuba and comments from Johnny Marr, David Byrne, Holly Johnson, Tom Robinson, Janice Long and Johnnie Walker.

22:30 Sky Arts 1 London Rock
Thought wiped until earlier this year, a rare 1970 documentary about the pop counter-culture featuring insights into T-Rex, the Faces, Fairport Convention, Linda Lewis and Matthew's Southern Comfort.

23:00 GOLD The Tony Ferrino Phenomenon
1996. Steve Coogan is comedy's biggest thing off the back of Knowing Me Knowing You, Coogan's Run and Paul Calf vehicles. So he decides to next do a Portuguese ex-Eurovision lothario lounge singer character, releasing a cover of Tom Jones' Help Yourself well before the show makes the screens. It doesn't go down well. Some say it's aged better.

23:00 Radio 1 Story Of 2010
Like it says.

23:20 Sky Arts 1 T-Rex: Born To Boogie
1972 Wembley concert film, directed by Ringo Starr, guesting Elton John, nodding in inserts to Magical Mystery Tour.


TUESDAY 21st
13:30 Radio 4 Billy Preston: That's the Way God Planned It
The only man given full featured credit on a proper Beatles song, and he basically collaborated with everybody, but ended up in a string of arrests and addictions before a second wind. Rick Wakeman presents an examination of his importance.

17:20 BBC2 Celebrity Eggheads
Is this what we want in 2010? A team of Tony Blackburn, Mike Read, David Hamilton, Ed Stewart and David Jensen taking on quiz experts at slow moving general knowledge?

18:30 BBC2 TOTP2 Christmas 2010
The spinoff's revival is now only as annual as the main programme, and while Mark Radcliffe for Steve Wright seems an excellent swap on paper the production team get round the lack of idiocy by cutting his voiceovers right over the entry of the vocals and making the captions even more asinine. Well done, everyone.

19:00 6 Music Marc Riley
The annual Christmas party welcomes by Elbow, I Am Kloot, Everything Everything, Jesca Hoop, Delphic, Liz Green, Liam Frost and Seal Cub Clubbing Club, all backed by the Earlies, a band who only seem now to exist for this.

20:00 Sky Movies Christmas Michael Jackson's This Is It
The film of the show that never happened. Wiki: "Despite originally being set for October 30, the film's release date was rescheduled for October 28, 2009, due to a strong demand by Jackson's fans." That's a whole new dimension to impatience.

20:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Ace Of Spades

22:00 Sky Arts 1 Frank Zappa - The Torture Never Stops
A 1981 Halloween show at the New York Palladium, with Steve Vai on guitar.

22:00 Radio 2 A Jazz Odyssey
Jazz is comfortably outside the STN radar, of course, but David Quantick bringing his Blagger's Guide To Jazz to the stage with an actual jazz backing band isn't.

22:35 BBC1 Imagine: Ray Davies - Imaginary Man

22:35 BBC2 Never Mind The Buzzcocks
You wouldn't normally think of Josh Groban as the most obvious host for something like this, but... well, no, you wouldn't. In keeping with the recent booking policy of nobody interesting or amusing but someone who the same jokes can be made about for twenty minutes, Tinchy Stryder guests with KT Tunstall, Michael Ball and Charlie Baker, whoever he is.


WEDNESDAY 22nd
00:05 C4 Little Noise Sessions
A roundelay of the Whiley-curated Union Chapel stripped down sessions, including input from Tom Jones, Example, the Ting Tings, Paolo Nutini, Rumer and Hurts.

11:30 Sky Movies Indie Taking Woodstock
Ang Lee's curious film about everything around Woodstock except the music.

14:50 Sky Arts 1 Black Wax: Gil Scott-Heron
Considerate 1982 documentary with live footage about the great political wordsmith.

18:55 Sky Arts 1 Good Copy, Bad Copy
File sharing moves so fast this 2007 documentary about the state of copyright and peer-to-peer culture might be well out of date already, though it does catch Danger Mouse and Girl Talk from what we might now call the golden age of the mashup.

20:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Reasonable Doubt
Not many people's idea of the great Jay-Z statement, but here it is.

20:00 Radio 2 Mark Radcliffe & Stuart Maconie
The annual traditions of their last show before Christmas - Noddy Holder and a female singer-songwriter, this year Hafdis Huld.

21:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Nevermind

22:00 Sky Arts 1 Strummerville
23:00 Sky Arts 1 The History Of The Clash
A Don Letts look at everything the charity and support network gets up to followed by the definitive Clash biog. No, not Westway To The World, the other one.

22:00 Radio 2 The Best Bette - Bette Midler Christmas Show
It's lateral thinking, we'll grant Radio 2 that.


THURSDAY 23rd
17:00 Sky Arts 1 Morrissey Live at Eurockeennes
Just under your Eurothighhes.

18:10 Sky Arts 1 Iconoclasts
Paul Simon chats with Saturday Night Live ubergrupenfuehrer Lorne Michaels.

20:00 BBC4 The Andy Williams Christmas Show
Oh blimey. The American Val Doonican is joined in this compilation of thirteen festive singalongs by the Osmonds.

20:00 Sky Movies Family The Rocker
Rainn Wilson is a former metal drummer trying to make a second go of it. As a tie-in Kerrang! held an unsigned band competition for which the winners "dressed and posed as characters from the film in the Kerrang! photo shoot." Given the film made less than half its budget back we wonder if they mention this much.

20:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Plastic Ono Band

21:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Dark Side Of The Moon

21:00 C4 The House That Made Me
There's a heartening ongoing belief that Jamelia is a huge name despite not having released anything for nearly four years, which is why she turns up on every series of 8 Out Of 10 Cats just to laugh a lot. She was on First Time Voters' Question Time in March! What sort of agent does she have? Here she revisits the Birmingham council estate home she grew up in and talks about her family and stuff.

22:00 Sky Arts 1 David Gilmour - Remember That Night: Live At The Royal Albert Hall
Three nights, actually, from 2006 and featuring guest spots for David Bowie (his last onstage appearance in Britain to date), David Crosby, Graham Nash and Robert Wyatt.

23:30 Sky Arts 1 Robyn Hitchcock: I Often Dream of Trains
Revisiting his 1984 album in 2008 in New York, interspersed with banter the internal logic of which will never be made apparent to anybody else.

23:35 Sky Movies Comedy The Boat That Rocked
Why a proper documentary about the fascinating evolvement of pirate radio will never be made.


CHRISTMAS EVE
07:00 Radio 1 Top 10 Of 2010
An hour each for James Corden, Matt Smith & Karen Gillan, and Tinie Tempah.

10:15 Sky Arts 1 Johnny Cash Day
Endless documentaries, Folsom Prison, Christmas specials and a 1994 Montreux appearance.

19:00 Radio 2 Wireless Kenny Everett
Cuddly Ken was one of the true radio originals, blowing apart playlists and technical possibilities, painstakingly cutting up tape and multitracking his jingles, and getting fired from the BBC on at least one occasion. Someone should revive the Bottom Thirty.

21:00 6 Music Tom Ravenscroft
A Christmas special. Who knows what could turn up, frankly.

22:00 Sky Arts 1 Good Rockin' Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records
The story of rock'n'roll's house label, alongside modern acts covering the label's standards. And by modern acts we mean Kid Rock, Live and Third Eye Blind. (And Paul McCartney and Page & Plant, in fairness)

23:00 Radio 2 Mark Lamarr
Lamarr's last show for the station after twelve years, claiming "over the last year the station has become much less interested in non-mainstream music, and my position there has been extremely uncomfortable." Shame.

23:50 Sky Arts 1 Swinging UK
Followed by UK Swings Again at 00:20, two sets of live recorded-in-colour performances from 1964 including the Hollies, The Animals, Lulu, the Tremeloes, the Merseybeats, the Swinging Blue Jeans and the Tornados.


CHRISTMAS DAY
Various times until the end of January Dandelion Radio 2010 Festive 50
The official medium taking up where Radio 1 and more directly Peel left off, a five hour special collating listener's votes to see who follows on from Los Campesinos!, The Fall and Battles from the last three years as the majority verdict will be repeated from here for the following 37 days. Check the station schedule nearer the event for full time details.

08:00 Radio 2 Junior Choice Christmas Special
Should be a great idea especially given our wayward idea of nostalgia, Ed Stewart reviving this old family favourite format once a year. We mean, look at that playlist! Unfortunately Stewpot somewhat drags it down by taking hours to read each dedication.

10:00 Radio 1 The Tinsel Takeover
As last year, a listener per quarter hour for nine hours gets to play a meagre amount of favoured records within certain criteria.

10:00 6 Music Adam and Joe's Christmas Special
Back! Back! Back! Rumoured to be for the last time, but even so.

13:00 1Xtra N-Dubz Takeover
There is no worse name for anything than the Braaap Pack, agreed?

13:00 6 Music Christmas With Hawley And Friends
Richard's friends being... oh, Jarvis, you guessed. But also Billy Bragg, John Cooper Clarke, the Smoke Fairies, Eliza Carthy and Pete Molinari.

13:00 Planet Rock Black Christmas With Tommy Iommi
Because sometimes you see a billing and you know it has to go in.

14:00 BBC1 Top Of The Pops Christmas 2010
Except this year nobody will recognise half the performers!

14:35 Sky Arts 1 Queen For Christmas
Mildly inevitable branding foir selection from Montreal 1986, the Freddie tribute concert, a Paul Rodgers gig and a Classic Albums on A Night At The Opera.

15:05 Radio 2 Kylie Minogue - Line Of Enquiry
Kylie gets tickled into submission by Kate Thornton's line of questioning.

16:00 6 Music Don Letts' Reggae Christmas
The new Up All Night All Day. (Look, we're deep into week two now, you don't mind if we just end up amusing ourselves with injokes, do you?)

16:45 Radio 4 Profile
Lady Gaga's not even done anything for a while, and yet Radio 4 still give over fifteen minutes to talk about her. That's some sort of power.

17:00 Radio 2 Kenny Everett's Christmas Selection Box
Following yesterday's documentary, an edited together compilation of bits of his work, including contributions from his mates the Beatles and Harry Nilsson and, it says here, "some recent records that Kenny would have liked for their jolliness and tunefulness". Whose idea was that?

18:00 BBC1 Doctor Who
Katherine Jenkins is prominently in it. For some reason.

21:00 Sky Arts 1 Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones
Recently reissued after many years of bootlegging, a recording over four Texan nights of the 1972 Exile On Main Street tour although heavier on earlier material.

21:00 Radio 2 The Radio 2 Christmas Quiz
Chris Evans hosts two teams of Radio 2 DJs taking on the station's own rounds and variants of its shows.

21:00 5 Live The Sound of 2010
That celebrated music station 5 Live re-runs interviews with Dave Grohl, Jack White, Cee-Lo Green, Tinie Tempah, all those.

21:20 BBC2 Swingin' Christmas
The sort of musical programming Michael Parkinson has longed to host, it's 2001 all over again with a festive run through the swing era. Curtis Stigers is on it. Seth MacFarlane, who might yet have a greater hand in Christmas 2010 music, is on it.

22:00 Radio 2 When Jools Holland Met Eric Clapton
Jools gets to utilise that unique interview style that's served him so well on telly.

22:00 6 Music Roxy Music - The Thrill Of It All
Two hours of this documentary too, with new interviews and the omnipresent Jarvis linking all.

22:15 Sky Arts 1 Chuck Berry Plays Avo Sessions
Chuck records some songs in Switzerland in 2007. Maybe for money.


BOXING DAY
09:00 Radio 1 Top 10 Of 2010
In hour long each order: Corden again, Nicole Scherzinger, Jack Black, Tinie Tempah again, Lewis Hamilton, the Who duo again, N-Dubz.

10:00 6 Music Cerys on 6
Promising "a very special session track from Florence and Billy Bragg". A big voiced female singer and a grizzled, accented bloke duetting on a Christmas song? Whatever could that be?

10:15 Sky Arts 1 Soul Power
Alongside the Rumble In The Jungle in Zaire (in Zai-ear) in 1974 was a three day festival headlined by James Brown and BB King and featuring Manu Dibango, the (Detroit) Spinners and Bill Withers. Many years later some cinema verite footage was found, and here it is.

11:15 Radio 4 Desert Island Discs
Sandie Shaw, recently returned to music on a strictly part time basis and now set adrift with her arbitary records and sole book.

13:00 Sky Arts 1 Eric Clapton Day
Assorted star turn-festooned extravaganzas and Royal Albert Hall residencies, plus a Disraeli Gears Classic Albums at 8.

18:00 6 Music Slash's Guitar Heroes
Sounds like the very worst type of Kerrang! TV filler which Slash had no say in the playlisting of, doesn't it? We're sure it won't be as compromised as that.

18:00 Absolute Elton John
Highlights of a gig at Union Chapel two months ago as Elton continues a well overdue back to basics approach.

18:40 Five Top Of The Pops Christmas 1985
Woo! Shown as part of Five's usual purloining of old Christmas entertainment from other channels, though this one might have been routed through the German channel that's picked up a load of old TOTPs for broadcast recently. Not a classic, though, with studio guests Colonel Abrams, Baltimora, Dead Or Alive, King, Alison Moyet, Billy Ocean, Feargal Sharkey and Paul Young mostly some distance away from the 80s of revival reinterpretation, not to mention Dixie Peach among the presenters (let alone Jonathan King).

20:00 6 Music 6 Mix
It's a favourite factoid of the terminally retentive that the first voice you hear on It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back is Dangerous Dave Pearce, introducing a broadcast of Public Enemy's first London gig for BBC Radio London having been the first person to play them on UK radio. Pearce and Chuck D are now reunited to discuss the birth of rap, its politics and gradual acceptance with influential music and tracks from that gig unheard for more than two decades.

21:00 Sky Arts 1 Under Heavy Fire: Phil Collins
If only.

21:15 BBC2 When Harvey Met Bob
22:45 BBC2 Live Aid: Rockin' All Over The World
One odd idea, this, as the meeting of Bob Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith to put on and plan Live Aid is spun out into a 90 minute drama, Goldsmith played by Ian Hart, Geldof by Tony Award-nominated Domhnall Gleeson. Followed by a more linear documentary.

23:35 Sky Arts 1 The Pixies Acoustic


MONDAY 27th
08:00 Sky Arts 1 2010 Festivals
Cambridge Folk Festival, Cropredy, Hard Rock Calling and Lovebox, to be precise.

10:00 6 Music The Sound Of The 70s
19:00 6 Music The Real 70s with Bob Harris
So the big wheeze for this stasis period between Christmas and the new year is to take a decade every day and see how it evolved and what it all meant. Or something. Marc Riley hosts the morning shift every day, Gideon Coe from 9 will also be joining in with session tracks.

12:00 Radio 2 Best Of Tracks Of My Years
Brandon Flowers, Bob Harris, Sir Jackie Stewart, Katherine Jenkins, Nanci Griffith, Phil Collins, Ozzy Osbourne, Meatloaf and more pick their favourite records.

16:00 Radio 1 Reggie Yates' Top 40 Of 2010
And Radio 1's big idea for the week is to get four DJs to sort through the mess of the year and choose their favourite tracks, presumably within careful time of day and audience parameters.

21:00 Sky Arts 1 Ian Dury and the Blockheads: Hang On To Your Structure
A day to do something else, all told - it's a bank holiday, after all - but this Hammersmith Odeon concert should be worth a look even if it was recorded well after his prime in 1985. And that's the title Sky have given, even though it's actually called Hold On To Your Structure.


TUESDAY 28th
08:30 Sky Arts 1 2010 Festivals
A wander round Camp Bestival, High Voltage, 80s Rewind and Sonisphere. We're guessing nobody went to all four.

10:00 6 Music The Sound Of The 80s

13:30 Radio 4 The British Reggae Revolution
From lover's rock to Steel Pulse, the first generation British black bands and singers had a politicised voice that ran parallel with punk in all sorts of ways. Presented by Rishi Persad. Ho-ho, no, not really. Don Letts again.

16:00 Radio 1 Fearne Cotton's Top 40 Of 2010

18:00 Living Robbie Williams' Crazy 2010
Wasn't strictly "crazy", was it? And this whole 'Crazy 2010' strand continues in this slot for the rest of the week with the wacky out-there antics of the Beckhams, Cheryl Cole and the decidedly sensible Simon Cowell.

19:00 6 Music The Real 80s with Stuart Maconie

20:00 Radio 2 Jarvis Cocker
Highlights of his 6 Music show for that annual 6 On 2 thing, in particular contributions from Michael Palin, Peter Blake and John Hillcoat.

22:00 Radio 2 At Home With Keith Richards
Someone called Paul Sexton pops by Keith's to talk about the life he's just got through talking about in hardback.

23:30 Bravo Towers Of London
This channel's closing down on New Year's Day, and nobody will miss it if in its last days it digs out one programme from the series that was meant to make Donny Tourette the punk hero of a new generation, an aim that ended in nationwide laughter and that bit on Celebrity Big Brother when he ruined his credibility within minutes of arrival by warmly greeting Leo Sayer.

23:50 Sky Movies Comedy It's All Gone Pete Tong
The only film to date to be named after a Mark and Lard catchphrase, although our gritty gangland thriller Cod Fish Battered Balls Ho-Ho! is on third draft.


WEDNESDAY 29th
10:00 6 Music The Sound Of The 90s

12:00 Radio 2 Jagger's Jukebox
And where Keith goes, Mick must go. It's that Paul Sexton again, talking to Jagger about his primary influences.

16:00 Radio 1 Greg James' Top 40 Of 2010

19:00 6 Music The Real 90s with Shaun Keaveney

20:00 Five Cheryl Cole: Where Did it All Go Right... And Wrong?
21:00 Five Most Shocking Celebrity Moments 2010
You'd never guess Five is owned by the same person who runs the Daily Express and Daily Star, would you?

21:00 Sky Arts 1 Duran Duran - Arena (An Absurd Notion)
Not us passing comment, but the actual overly fussy title of their 1984 concert film. And by film, we mean it has a storyline around the live footage starring Milo O'Shea reprising his Barbarella role as the character who gave the band their name.

22:00 Bio Pictures Of Status Quo
Film and audio too.

22:00 Radio 2 Sally Boazman: In Search of a British Route 66
Lordy, here's a concept. Sally Traffic goes on a journey to find the history of British roads in song, from the Radio Ballads to It's Immaterial and Malcolm Middleton. Malcolm Middleton! On a big Radio 2 documentary!

23:00 Radio 2 Trevor Nelson's Soul Show
Cee-Lo Green co-presents.

23:30 Sky Arts 1 New Order Live In Finsbury Park
From 2002, meaning Barney circumnavigates being in tune and punches the air like a dancing dad during Joy Division songs.


THURSDAY 30th
10:00 6 Music The Sound Of The 00s

12:00 Radio 2 Johnnie Walker With The Kinks - We're Not Like Everybody Else
It's often said that Ray and Dave Davies don't speak any more, but they're supposedly being jointly interviewed here by Johnnie Walker about their back catalogue.

16:00 Radio 1 Jo Whiley's Top 40 Of 2010

19:00 6 Music The Real 00s with Lauren Laverne

20:00 Sky Arts 1 The Who - Tommy and Quadrophenia Live
The former in 1989, the latter in 1996, disjointedly enough.

21:00 More4 Michael Jackson's Secret Hollywood
We found an old edition of Danny Baker's failed 1993 chat show After All the other day in which, having fruitlessly been sent to a shop supposedly selling Gulf War memorabilia, he calls out the researcher responsible for the misinformation on air, one Jacques Peretti. These days he's a renowned investigative showbiz reporter and may not have needed to trawl London high streets for odd stuff in years. Here the pitch is that Jacko was no more fruitloop than any Hollywood star, but that seems to translate to 'he had an entourage'.

21:30 BBC2 Never Mind the Buzzcocks
Robert Webb tosses airballs to Example, Cee-Lo Green, Chris Packham (go on, wear that Jesus & Mary Chain T-shirt again, the writers will only be prepared for Smiths gags) and Andi Osho.

21:30 Sky Arts 1 The Who Live at the Isle of Wight
From the classic 1970 festival, taking the stage at 2am. Couldn't do that now. And quite rightly.

22:00 BBC2 Shooting Stars Christmas Special 2010
Here because Ronnie Wood's on, but also we must mention that an appearance from Mulligan and O'Hare is promised.

22:30 Sky Arts 1 John Entwistle: An Ox's Tale
That whole bit about dying of a heart attack induced by cocaine while in bed with a stripper groupie will need to be treated with extreme sensitivity, but Entwistle was one of the great bassists who virtually played it as lead instrument, this in a band also featuring Pete Townshend and Keith Moon. Quiet, reserved bloke, so everyone says, who didn't do much on stage, so a lot of this might be padding.


NEW YEAR'S EVE
00:40 C4 The Album Chart Show Spotlight
A tips for 2010 special including Clare Maguire, Jessie J, Sunday Girl and Katy B. James Blake and the Vaccines are away.

12:00 Bio Kaiser Chiefs Live: Main Square Festival in Arras
13:00 Bio Lily Allen Live: Main Square Festival in Arras
French festival sets from 2009. We're amused by the Arras tourism site's reference to a 2007 show by "Radiohead, the mythical group of Thom Yorke". No, we think they exist.

13:00 Planet Rock Marquee
An extended reminiscence about the titular, important once London club.

16:00 Radio 1 Scott Mills' Top 40 Floor Fillers Of 2010

16:00 6 Music Lamacq's Top 40 Of 2010
All taken from listener's votes, which was sent wildly awry when Depeche Mode ended up winning last year.

18:00 Sky Arts 1 Prince's Trust Rock Gala 2010: The Highlights
19:30 Sky Arts 1 Prince's Trust Rock Gala 2010: By Appointment
A Rock Gala. Keane's Tom Chaplin with the active half of Queen, Alison Moyet with Jamie Cullum, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Jools Holland, Tom Jones, Paloma Faith, Midge Ure, Mike & The Mechanics, Mark King and Status Quo play in front of Charles and Camilla. That's what we fought for in 1976!

18:00 Radio 2 Friday Night Is Music Night - Bare Feet And Beehives
Jazz singer Liane Carroll reconstructs the story and music of the female pop singers of the 60s, replicating "the journey and emotions of love". Nothing too full on, then.

19:00 all MTV channels Non Stop New Year's Eve
Except it never is non stop because they keep the adverts in, and those things are regular.

19:00 Radio 2 Tony Blackburn
Of course he's a playing to the gallery cariacture but Blackburn's always made a point of his love of soul music and Motown, presenting Britain's first legal soul radio show, and now the whole I'm A Celebrity postmodernism has died down and he has a party audience at his hand (though his former assistant Dave Pearce gets the midnight gig) it could be more fun than you'd imagine.

20:00 Sky Arts 1 Roy Orbison: the Anthology
Live clips and testimonials. Bono's involved, as he generally is.

21:00 Bio Take That: The Ultimate Tour
The first reunion stadium tour arrives at their adoptive home Manchester. Do you think Take That have an exit strategy?

They can't just dissolve again, not at this stage and fame.

22:00 6 Music New Year's Eve 6 Mix Superstar DJs
Mixes from Andrew Weatherall, Orbital and that hard house Ibiza superstar regular Dan Snaith of Caribou.

22:30 Bio Madonna: The Confessions Tour Live From London
"Directed by Jonas Åkerlund". WARGH.

23:00 BBC2 Jools' Annual Hootenanny
And we end the year as we should, sitting through Jools and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and waiting for Rowland Rivron to appear. Confirmed: Kylie, Toots Hibbert, Vampire Weekend, Cee-Lo Green, Roger Daltrey, Wanda Jackson, Plan B, Rumer, Ruby Turner, Bellowhead and Jack White's new Nashville progeny Secret Sisters.