Throng

Chris Moyles is to front a fascinating one-off documentary for BBC Two on the story of the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show.

In When Moyles Met the Radio 1 Breakfast DJs, Chris will tell the story of the most defining pop culture moments from the past 40 years – through the eyes of former Radio 1 Breakfast DJs.

The Radio 1 Breakfast Show is at the very heart of popular culture in the UK. Millions of people have grown up listening to it since the station launched in 1967 and view the breakfast show as a key part of their lives.

Research for a BBC Two documentary has revealed that official figures could fail to accurately record the number of murders committed annually by people with serious mental health problems in Britain. This new research suggests that the true figure is almost double the officially recorded number with approximately 100 such crimes committed each year.

Film maker, Julian Hendy, spent nearly three years researching mental health homicides in Britain following the murder of his father, Philip Hendy, in Bristol in 2007. The results can be seen in BBC Two’s Why Did You Kill My Dad? on Monday 1st March.

Frank Skinner is to front a brand new entertainment show for BBC Two which will see him unleash his own inimitable views and humour.

Marking his return to the BBC with his first BBC Two series since Fantasy Football, Frank Skinner's Opinionated is a weekly topical show that takes on the big, and not so big, issues in the news from Frank's unique perspective.

Joining Frank will be two top comedians to unpick both sides of the argument, while keeping an all-important eye on the funny side.

Cracking Antiques is on a myth-busting mission to prove that people can add style and glamour to any type of home by investing in second-hand, vintage and antique furnishings – without breaking the bank.

The prime-time series, coming to BBC Two in Spring 2010, is presented by interior designer Kathryn Rayward and antiques expert Mark Hill.

Kathryn and Mark want to take the pain and shame out of buying old. From town houses to terraced houses, 18th-century French Rococo to shabby chic, they want to show that antiques and vintage furnishings can help create a stylish, fashionable home and are often the better buy.

Simon should have started this final leg of his journey by following the Tropic of Cancer through the far south of China, but Beijing officials declined to provide the team with visas, a reminder that the Chinese government still has a difficult relationship with foreign media.

So, instead, Simon began this final leg of in Laos, just to the south of China, at the very centre of the infamous Golden Triangle, the tri-border river junction between Burma, Thailand and Laos. The Golden Triangle is known globally as a major centre of heroin production, but that hasn't deterred a group of Chinese businessmen from starting construction of a vast "Golden Triangle Entertainment City" on the remote banks of the Mekong River, with hotel resorts and plush casinos, where Simon tries his hand at cards.

The penultimate part of the series starts in western Bangladesh with a boat trip down the mighty River Padma (the Ganges in India) and ends with a perilous jungle trek into a remote area of Burma.

Starting in Bangladesh, the country thought to be most vulnerable to climate change, Simon finds communities on the River Padma desperately shoring up the riverbank as increased melting in the Himalayas means their land is crumbling away before their eyes. And he goes night fishing with otter fishermen, clinging to their curious way of life despite dwindling fish stocks.

The fourth programme sees Simon cross Northern India under the dark storm clouds of the annual Monsoon, one of the great climactic events of the Tropics.

From the coast of Gujarat to the teeming metropolis of Kolkata (Calcutta), this journey takes him on across areas of India rarely visited by tourists.

In the east he visits the "Little Rann", a unique desert environment and home to the last viable population of the Indian Wild Ass. These shy, beautiful creatures are impossible to keep in captivity, and are under threat from India's vast and ever-expanding human population, another huge issue across much of the Tropics.

This second leg of the journey is a daunting and extreme adventure, as Simon follows the Tropic of Cancer from the windswept Atlantic coast of North Africa across the Sahara, through southern Algeria and Libya, and across borders that have been closed to foreigners for decades.

The journey starts on the coast of Western Sahara, where Simon joins rugged travellers attempting the extreme and exhilarating sport of kite surfing.

But Western Sahara is a country still locked in conflict, occupied by Morocco but claimed by an independence movement that represents many of the indigenous Saharawi people. Evading Moroccan secret police, Simon meets dissidents who claim to have been beaten and harassed for campaigning for Saharawi rights.

The third leg of Simon Reeve's journey around the Tropic of Cancer takes him from the waters of the River Nile to the edge of the Indian Ocean in Oman.

At the spectacular ancient ruins of Abu Simbel he meets Nubians struggling to maintain their culture following their displacement by the damning of the Nile and the formation of the vast Lake Nasser in the Sixties.

On the edge of the desert he meets a Bedouin leader called Ali the Lion, who explains how his people are being forced from their traditional nomadic lifestyle by a seven-year drought that scientists believe is caused by global climate change, one of the greatest challenges facing the Tropics.

From Mexico's beautiful Pacific coast to the coral paradise of the Bahamas, this first leg of Simon Reeve's epic circumnavigation of the globe is a spectacular journey revealing much about life on the northern edge of the Tropics.

Simon starts his journey in Baja California, Mexico, where he discovers a region living in the shadow of the United States, its giant northern neighbour, and visits a new holiday resort with $12,000-a-night rooms.

It is just the first example Simon encounters of American influence on this leg of his trip, as he then takes a ferry across the Sea of Cortez to the infamous city of Culiacan, headquarters of the fearsome Sinaloa drug cartel, where he goes on patrol with an elite police unit engaged in a brutal and violent struggle against drug gangs. The war is being fought to stem the flow of cocaine to the United States, and it threatens the very stability of the Mexican state.

Mathew Horne (Gavin And Stacey, The Catherine Tate Show), Marc Warren (Hustle, Mutual Friends), Mark Gatiss (The League Of Gentlemen, Crooked House) and talented newcomer Douglas Booth are announced to star in Worried About The Boy, a BBC Two drama from Red Production Company about a young Boy George and his journey to become a star on the Eighties fashion and pop music scene.

Written by Tony Basgallop (Hotel Babylon, Hughie Green Most Sincerely) and directed by Julian Jarrold (Red Riding, Brideshead Revisited), Worried About The Boy follows George's journey from cloakroom attendant to cultural icon – from falling in love for the first time, to embracing his unique style, to meeting his Culture Club bandmates.

As a teenager, George O'Dowd realised he was not like the other boys his own age – sharp-witted, independent-minded and with a passion for clothes and make-up, he dreamt of becoming a star.

Begins March 2010

Simon Reeve, best-selling author and broadcaster, embarks on his most ambitious journey yet, circling the world following the line that marks the northern border of the Earth's tropical region.

This epic trip completes Simon's trilogy of journeys exploring the tropics, after his acclaimed series Equator and Tropic Of Capricorn, and is his toughest, longest and greatest challenge – a six x 60-minute journey around the extraordinary Tropic Of Cancer on BBC Two.

Simon starts his journey on the paradise beaches of Mexico's Pacific Coast, and then circumnavigates the planet, heading east across the Caribbean, the Sahara, crossing borders in North Africa closed to foreigners for decades, and then on through the deserts of Arabia and the remote jungles of Asia, to finish in Hawaii.

Space Dive (working title), an exclusive BBC documentary, is set to follow Felix Baumgartner, elite BASE jumper, as he freefalls from space, shattering world records.

BBC Two has the behind-the-scenes story of Felix's two-year preparations to jump from 125,000 feet; a height that will qualify him as the first person to break the sound barrier in a freefall jump from the edge of Space.

Gary Hunter, BBC executive producer, says: "This is a fascinating blend of scientific challenge and human endeavour."

Anglican priest, Peter Owen Jones, goes back to basics to try and live a simple and more meaningful life, inspired by the teachings of St Francis of Assisi, for a major new BBC Two series – How To Live A Simple Life.

The series was filmed over an eight-month period in Pete's small Sussex country village of Firle. Like millions of others Pete felt caught up in a pointless frenzy of spending.

St Francis was inspired by Jesus' sermon in the Gospel to live a life of "voluntary poverty" as the key to deeper relations with both nature and your fellow being.

Pete must grow his own crops, raise chickens, barter his skills for cuts of meat and even live without money.

As the whole of the British Isles faces up to what is now the coldest and "whitest" winter for decades, our wildlife is forced to endure huge challenges.

As we struggle to cope, how does nature survive and adapt? The Springwatch/Autumnwatch team and friends have been out investigating what the big freeze really means for our wild animals.

Snow Watch, a specially-commissioned winter wildlife special, will report from wildlife hotspots around the UK, discussing who are the winners and losers, and offering advice on what we can do to help in our own gardens.