BBC Two's blog

10:00pm Friday 6 April on BBC TWO

Series two of the British Comedy Award-winning comedy Twenty Twelve continues tonight with the second episode of its four-part series.

Written and directed by John Morton (People Like Us), Twenty Twelve sees the return of Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), Jessica Hynes (Spaced), Olivia Colman (Rev), Amelia Bullmore (Ashes To Ashes), Karl Theobald (Green Wing) and Vincent Franklin (The Thick Of It), who are joined this series by two new characters, played by Samuel Barnett (Beautiful People) and Morven Christie (Monday Monday). Together they form the Olympic Deliverance team, paddling hard below the waterline to keep the London 2012 Olympics on track and on budget.

In Episode 2, The Algerians issue a deadline of midnight for a solution to their demand for a Shared Belief Centre which faces Mecca, whilst the French are now threatening to pull out of the Games if a separate mosque is built. The team comes up with the idea of swapping the Shared Belief Centre with the Laundry Services Building which already faces Mecca, but to appease the Christians they’ll need to get an architect in.

Is it architecturally possible to design a building that will satisfy everyone, or is the entire Olympic Games about to unravel in front of their eyes?

Ian’s PA Sally has managed to get the water turned on in his new flat, but it won’t be fixed for a couple of days, so he accepts her offer of her spare room for the night.

Twenty Twelve is produced by Paul Schlesinger and the executive producer is Jon Plowman.

9:00pm Thursday 5 April on BBC TWO

In the present day a fifth former flatmate arrives. They too are overwhelmed with memories of the past – in episode 5: The Eye Of The Needle.

It’s 1982, the year of the Falklands war, and Jay and Orla are the only ones still living at the flat. Having watched Jack descend into heroin addiction they ask the other flatmates to return and help detox him.

Lilly’s life is blown apart by some devastating news while Alan remains unaware of the truth behind her anguish. Charlotte’s mother’s manic depression has placed increasing demands on Charlotte, not least when she arrives at the flat in an acute manic phase.

Charlotte sends for Jack’s father to see him. Jack, hearing his father confess his anguish over his son, breaks down as he realises the past damage he has caused to those closest to him.

Ep 5/6

8:00pm Wednesday 4 April on BBC TWO

Our Food is a brand new four part series for BBC Two. Our landscape, our climate and our history define what we grow and where we grow it. In each episode, journalist Giles Coren explores a different corner of the British Isles in search of the foods that make us who we are.

From the black cattle of North Wales, who were once herded all the way to London, to the cherries of Kent that can be traced back to a sweet-toothed Henry VIII, British food is about much more than what we put on our plates.

Giles is joined on this journey by botanist James Wong, historian Lucy Worsley, archaeologist Alex Langlands and horticulturalist Alys Fowler. Together they discover how our soils and seas have shaped our tastes and traditions, travelling through Norfolk, North Wales, Kent and the West of Scotland to tell the story of Our Food.

In episode one Giles Coren embarks on a journey by wherry through Norfolk, a county where local, seasonal foods sit alongside large scale commercial agriculture.

Norfolk floats free at the end of the M11. This is a place with no motorway, no high speed rail links, no major airport – a place where isolation has allowed both tradition and enterprise to thrive. Giles learns how to tell the difference between a male and female crab when he gets a taste of life as a Cromer fisherman, while Lucy Worsley uncovers the Mexican past of the oh-so-traditional British turkey.

The team also discover how the humble turnip changed the way we farm and why half of our sugar comes from a grubby Norfolk root.

Ep 1/4

9:00pm Monday 2 April on BBC TWO

From James Bond to Jason Bourne, the fictional world of spying is a world of danger and deception, glamour and lies. But how does the myth compare with the reality?

In the first of two programmes Peter Taylor looks at the real world of modern spies. For the first time on television, serving British secret agents talk about their work – from an MI6 agent runner to an MI5 surveillance officer.

This week, Modern Spies investigates how today’s spies are recruited and probes the secrets of spycraft, from the sleeper cell to the brush pass and the cut out to the cyber spy.

Ep 1/2

8:00pm Monday 2 April on BBC TWO

A new series for BBC Two Angels of Mersey follows the front line work of Liverpool’s chaplains, from the work they do to the lives that they touch.

Keeping the streets of the city safe is a major challenge for the police, but now they have a new religious force to back them up: Christians from churches all over the city have volunteered to become street pastors. They will be out with the quarter of a million people who come into Liverpool for a night out in the city’s clubs and bars every weekend.

Meanwhile at Liverpool University, Rabbi Shmuli Brown is on a mission to track down Jewish students who are starting university in a few weeks time. The Rabbi is part of Chabad, an organization providing a home from home for Jewish students. There are two hundred Jewish students expected on campus this year and when Rabbi Brown’s around, there’s nowhere to hide.

Ep 2/6

9:00pm Sunday 1 April on BBC TWO

Thirty years after the Falklands War, journalist and military historian Max Hastings explores the conflict’s impact and its legacy over the past three decades.

Hastings, who sailed with the Task Force in 1982 and reported the Falklands campaign firsthand, looks at how victory in the South Atlantic revived the reputation of our armed forces; renewed Britain’s sense of pride and its image abroad after years of decline as an Imperial and military power.

Hastings examines how the Falklands provided a model of a swift and successful war that was matched by other conflicts Britain fought at the end of the 20th century. But it was a model that came to be shattered by the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns that have left the British public sceptical about sending our armed forces in large numbers to war again.

The Falklands could well be the last popular war Britain fights and certainly the country’s last Imperial Hurrah.

9:30pm Saturday 31 March on BBC TWO

The BBC’s flagship arts documentary strand Arena returns with the first ever documentary exploring the extraordinary life of Sir Jonathan Miller CBE.

Jonathan Miller is usually described as a polymath or Renaissance Man, two labels he personally dislikes. But no-one quite like him has made such an impact on British culture through the medium of television, radio, theatre and opera.

He has straddled the great divide between the arts and the sciences, while being a brilliant humorist, a qualified doctor, and even a practising artist.

With the man himself and a host of distinguished collaborators, including Oliver Sacks, Eric Idle, Kevin Spacey (who owes his first break to Miller) and Penelope Wilton, this Arena profile explores Miller’s rich life and examines through amazing television archive – mostly from the BBC – how he makes these connections between the worlds of the imagination and scientific fact.

10:00pm Friday 30 March on BBC TWO

The British Comedy award-winning Twenty Twelve returns tonight for a four-part second series.

As the Games get ever nearer the Algerian Olympic team threaten to boycott the Games after discovering that the Shared Belief Centre does not face Mecca.

Ian (Bonneville) and his team have just hours to find a solution that will keep everyone happy. Head of Infrastructure Graham Hitchins (Theobald) ends up accompanying Ian to a crucial three-way teleconference with Sebastian Coe, the British Foreign Office and the Algerian representative, Dr Benhamadi. No chance then, that events will end up veering badly off track.

Written and directed by John Morton (People Like Us), Twenty Twelve sees the return of Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), Jessica Hynes (Spaced), Olivia Colman (Rev), Amelia Bullmore (Ashes to Ashes), Karl Theobald (Green Wing) and Vincent Franklin (The Thick Of It)

They are joined this series by two new characters, played by Samuel Barnett (Beautiful People) and Morven Christie (Monday Monday). Together they form the Olympic Deliverance team, paddling hard below the waterline to keep the London 2012 Olympics on track and on budget.

Twenty Twelve is produced by Paul Schlesinger and the executive producer is Jon Plowman.

9:00pm Thursday 29 March on BBC TWO

It is present day and painful wounds from the past are reopened as the foursome continue to sort through the flat.

Back in 1979 it’s the winter of discontent: strikes are causing chaos, rubbish lines the streets and a General Election is imminent. The seven are now in their early thirties but only Jack, Jay and Orla still live in the flat. The former flat mates come together in the pub to celebrate Alan and Lilly’s engagement.

Alan’s news confirms Jay’s sense of alienation. He has to hide his sexuality at work and worst of all from his family. Now he decides it is time to tell his parents that he is gay.

Margaret Thatcher’s election victory serves as a reminder to Jack about his failed political ambitions. Seeing Charlotte again also reminds him of what he’s lost and he decides to get clean and stand as a Labour Party candidate.

Lily and Alan’s wedding reception is in full swing when a stop and search encounter with the police gets Victor arrested. It is down to Jack to save him, but in doing so he knows he will risk his new political career and any chance of winning back Charlotte…

Ep 4/6

9:00pm Wednesday 28 March on BBC TWO

In the first in-depth television analysis of the US diplomatic messages or ‘cables’ turned into a global sensation by the website WikiLeaks, Richard Bilton lifts the lid on a superpower’s secret thoughts and aspirations, plans and strategies, struggles and fears.

In episode two Richard Bilton confronts the nightmares that haunt America. Using the secret cables, Richard offers a striking analysis of the state of the superpower – facing defiance around the world, struggling to achieve its goals, locked in confrontation with enemies new and old.

This includes how it struggles with Russian aggression, China’s rising economic power and military might and the ultimate threat – an Iranian bomb. He journeys to Russia to investigate allegations of Kremlin corruption, meeting the key sources who gave information to American diplomats.

And he tells the story of a modern, Cold War-style crisis at the very heart of NATO. From information in the cables, Richard charts how China’s economic and military muscle present an unprecedented threat to America’s self-confidence.

Meeting persecuted Chinese dissidents, he shows how America has struggled to challenge China on its human rights behaviour. Finally, he examines America’s greatest fear: an Iranian nuclear bomb. He meets those who tried to convince America to strike at the heart of Ahmadinejad’s Iran – and the top flight US diplomats who admit the urgency of their clearest danger.

Ep 2/2