This week's TV and radio: into the vaults, below stairs and across Empire

Submitted by mattelton

Tue, 2011-04-12 09:29

This week's
TV & radio
7 – 14 March

Pick of the week

Who Do You Think You Are?

Various times throughout the week

As Claire, our deputy editor, writes in her blog this week, the producers of Who Do You Think You Are? have recently revealed which celebrities will be tracing their roots in this year's upcoming series. We're still a way off yet, though, so here's some classic instalments from both sides of the Atlantic to keep you going...

The Country House Revealed

Sunday 11 March, 7pm BBC HD

Such is the plethora of property and period-property programmes currently on TV that it can be difficult to remember which one is which. Is this the one in which Penelope Keith and a man in pink trousers reconstruct a manor house? Or the one where renovation maven Sarah Beeny attempts to render a rural pile inhabitable? Actually, it's neither: this sees architectural historian Dan Cruickshank explore the stories behind some of the UK's finest manor houses, in this case Easton Neston in Northamptonshire. It's full of intriguing social history gems.

Upstairs, Downstairs

Sunday 11 March, 9pm BBC One

It may not have scored 100% in historical accuracy stakes - eagle-eyed viewers were quick to spot the Second World War airships flying, uncharacteristically, upside down - but as fast-paced turn-the-page period fiction, this is defiantly entertaining.

Empire

Monday 12 March, 9pm BBC One

Michael Palin shows up in this week's third instalment to discuss the central role that the concept of the gentleman adventurer played in the making of the British Empire, something the comedian satirised to great effect in his Ripping Yarns series. There are also detours - laced, no doubt, with Paxman's characteristically sardonic delivery - to explore the worlds of cricket and horse racing.

WDYTYA: Forum