Celebrating 200 Years of the Most Famous Classical Music Piece

It is the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and given that it’s arguably the most well-known piece of classical music, it’s only right that it is commemorated. Nicholas Collon conducts the Aurora Orchestra in a signature memorized Proms performance. Soloists include Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Marta Fontanals-Simmons, Brenden Gunnell, and Christopher Purves. The National Youth Choir of Great Britain joins for the final, joyous movement.

In the Farne Islands, a general practitioner has a strange connection with seals. This charming film follows Ben Burville as he dives into the icy waters of the North Sea and comes back with remarkable footage. Ben credits the seals and the natural world with improvements to his mental health.

Remote locations give an extra edge to these real-life rescues, whether it’s a trek down a rocky ravine in the Peak District to find a woman who has fallen or a lifeboat rushing to help a stranded party in the Solent. Meanwhile, a Cambridgeshire helicopter crew must assess a motorcyclist’s injuries quickly after a crash.

Autumn is approaching but Monty Don is in a hopeful mood, already thinking of next spring and getting some daffodil bulbs planted in readiness. Less pleasantly, he’s dealing with the horror of bindweed. Elsewhere, Frances Tophill visits pioneering horticulturist Josh Sparkes in Devon.

If something goes wrong on a plane, you hope the captain will respond calmly. So, what happens if they have been sucked halfway out of the cockpit window? That was the situation on a flight from Birmingham to Malaga in 1990. The story is retold via dramatic reconstructions and first-hand testimony from passengers.

Another very funny, majestically crude double bill of the animated comedy centered on Ebbw Vale’s worst curry house. In the first episode, Basil vows to make a TV advert and, when we finally see it, it does not disappoint. Then we flash back to Nick’s shameful past as an unstable mixed martial arts enthusiast.

It brings with it a ton of negative baggage – largely owing to its lead actor, Dakota Johnson, slamming it on the promotional tour – but the new Spider-verse flick is not the total car crash you might be expecting. The origin story for Johnson’s Cassandra Webb, a paramedic who can see the future, and three teenage girls (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O’Connor), who will grow up to be spider-women, is more like Marvel’s TV series: rooted in ordinary urban life, with the action small-scale and rarely super.

Day two, featuring first heats in the para-rowing and para-athletics.

The Golden Gala Pietro Mennea at Stadio Olimpico.

Source: BBC, Channel 5, Sky Cinema