New comedy shows unveiled in ±«ÓãtvÌýScotland's season launch
Programmes A-L
The Adventures Of Don Roberto Factual
±«Óãtv Two Scotland
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A chronicle of the life of one of Scotland's most colourful characters – from the Pampas of Argentina to the Texan frontier to defining political movements in Britain.
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Hailing from land-owning gentry in Stirlingshire, Robert Cunninghame Grahame is linked to a succession of radical causes which chimed against his privileged status.
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Born in Gartmore in 1852, Cunninghame Grahame's first adventure, following an unhappy schooling in Harrow, took him to the Pampas where he lived among the gauchos while Argentina was in the throes of revolution.
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The radicalisation of this remarkable writer and adventurer continued on his return to Scotland.
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Archive-rich, this documentary tells the story of the swashbuckling character who co-founded the Scottish Labour Party before going on to become a founder of the National Party of Scotland and the first president of the Scottish National Party.
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JG2
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±«Óãtv Scotland Investigates News
±«Óãtv One Scotland
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±«Óãtv Scotland Investigates reveals the shocking truth behind the biggest outbreak of a deadly superbug which Scotland has ever witnessed.
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C-difficile claimed the lives of 18 people at just one hospital – the Vale of Leven.
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Almost 300 others have died of the bug at hospitals across Scotland.
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Reporter Samantha Poling pieces together what really happened at the hospital as the superbug took hold and reveals the systemic failures which allowed the bug to claim victim after victim.
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She talks to the victims' families left to fight for justice and examines the ongoing policy failures which could mean another outbreak could happen again.
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JG2
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Beachcomber Cottage Factual
±«Óãtv Two
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Beachcomber Cottage follows Monty Halls as he fulfils many people's fantasy to get away from it all and live the good life on a beautiful isolated beach.
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As a child Monty was enthralled by the wildlife classic Ring Of Bright Water.
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Now, 30 years later, he is fulfilling his lifelong dream to up sticks and live the simple life in the very area that captivated him all those years ago – the beautiful west coast of Scotland.
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Finding a disused bothy in an idyllic bay near Applecross, he sets about turning it into a comfortable but basic home for himself and his companion, Reuben the dog.
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Over the course of six months he immerses himself in the local wildlife both on land and in the sea.
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A former Royal Marine, he's a highly-trained diver, marine biologist and explorer.
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Monty throws his heart and soul into the challenge to give viewers a glimpse into a unique lifestyle.
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Beachcomber Cottage is an eight part series for ±«Óãtv Two from Tigress Productions. It will transmit in early 2009.
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Front Desk
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Boxer & Doberman Comedy & Entertainment
±«Óãtv 7
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A gritty but gratuitously silly comedy police serial in which the grizzled Detective Inspector Bob Boxer and his slightly less grizzled sidekick, Detective Constable Shona Doberman, take on the Glasgow underworld.
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DI Boxer and DC Doberman face the toughest challenge of their careers, as a succession of distinguished academics are found dead across the city.
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Boxer and Doberman are on the case, using intuition, persistence and "an unassailable commitment to paperwork" to get at the truth.
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±«Óãtv Scotland Press Office
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Burnistoun Comedy & Entertainment
±«Óãtv Two Scotland
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Robert Florence and Iain Connell write and perform a brand new sketch show for ±«Óãtv Scotland featuring the residents of a fictional Scottish town named Burnistoun.
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Robert will be familiar to ±«Óãtv audiences as presenter of anarchic video games review show Videogaiden.
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Florence and Connell have previously written sitcoms Empty And Legit and created characters for Chewin' The Fat and The Karen Dunbar Show.
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For Burnistoun their new character creations include Uncle Willie, the man who insists on having his own funeral before he dies, wannabe girl-band singer Jackie McGlade who can make any tune sexy except football songs, and John and Terry, two pub pals who insist they do not fantasise about each other sexually.
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Burnistoun has its own newspaper, its own radio station and its own ice-cream van where sparks and nuggets fly as the boys who own it have a major family argument.
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The show's supporting cast includes Leah MacRae (Legit, The Karen Dunbar Show, The Angry Puppy) and comic performer Allan Miller (The Atrocity Machine).
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Burnistoun is a Comedy Unit production for ±«Óãtv Scotland.
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JG2
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Carluccio & The Leopard Factual
±«Óãtv Four
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In this hour-long one-off, Antonio Carluccio traces the story of the best selling Italian novel ever written, travelling to Sicily to explore the brooding landscape, to search for fragments of the life of its enigmatic author, and to cook the food that is so lovingly described in The Leopard.
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Front Desk
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Children In Need 2008 Entertainment
±«Óãtv One
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Loveable bear Pudsey returns on Friday 14 November to celebrate the 29th annual ±«Óãtv Children in Need appeal.
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The fun-packed evening of entertainment aims to raise as much money as possible to help disadvantaged children and young people across Scotland.
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Included in the show will be stories from fundraisers and examples of how the money raised is spent, as well as celebrity guests rolling up their sleeves to take part in a variety of challenges and activities – all in the name of Pudsey.
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WM
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Children In Need 2008 Entertainment
±«Óãtv Radio Scotland
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This year ±«Óãtv Radio Scotland will be teaming up with Children in Need as the station celebrates its 30th birthday.
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During the 30 days of November, fund-raising Pudsey Parties at locations all over Scotland will involve different Radio Scotland programmes and presenters.
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On Children in Need day itself there will be dedicated output throughout the day involving Fred MacAulay, Tom Morton, Bryan Burnett, Janice Forsyth, Clare English and special celebrity guests popping in to help put cash in Pudsey's paws.
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WM
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China Stories ±«Óãtv Learning
±«Óãtv One Scotland
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China Stories is an ambitious multi-platform offering from ±«Óãtv Scotland Learning, consisting of TV, radio and online content.
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At the heart are eight films made on location in China, covering subjects such as migrant workers, farming, school life, the single child policy, Chinese medicine, blogging and internet use.
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The China Stories films will be transmitted in September, and will also be available in their entirety on the website – bbc.co.uk/chinastories – alongside an online debating tool, a wealth of additional content and a production blog, charting the team's progress from pre-production to editing.
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±«Óãtv Scotland Press Office
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Comedy Confessions Comedy & Entertainment
±«Óãtv Radio Scotland
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Roman Catholic Parish Priest, Father Joe Mills, presents Comedy Confessions – ±«Óãtv Radio Scotland's latest comedy series due out this autumn.
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Comedians Ed Byrne, Jim Bowen, Jo Caulfield and Arnold Brown enter "the confessional" and tell the audience in a funny and poignant way what has inspired, motivated or driven them to be a comedian both spiritually and emotionally.
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Father Joe Mills is a new presenter to radio comedy, but regularly brings the audience ±«Óãtv Radio Scotland's Thought For The Day.
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He is also a stand-up comedian himself performing at local church charity shows and was a good friend of the late Chic Murray.
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Comedy Confessions is produced by Margaret-Anne Docherty.
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SV
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The Culture Show Factual
±«Óãtv Two
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The Culture Show, which is recorded in London and Glasgow on alternate weeks, returns in November with its usual pick of topical cultural life, from movies to music, art to authors.
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Each week the programme will be featuring the big stories, profiles, exhibitions and performances that will be making the headlines from all round the country, and reviewing the week's movie releases and previewing all the shows, galleries, concerts or TV shows that people are talking about.
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With a combination of studio guests, music and a healthy does of humour, The Culture Show will be back with the low down on all things cultural.
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HM
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The Dark Side Of Fame With Piers Morgan Factual
±«Óãtv One
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In a new series of one-to-one interviews, Piers Morgan talks to eight celebrities who've found themselves at the centre of media storms, to find out what is was like when the tabloids decided it was their turn to get it.
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Each programme in the series will focus on one person, and will document in detail their traumatic story.
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Those interviewed by Piers are Pamela Anderson, Mickey Rourke, Jim Davidson, Jason Donovan, Nancy Dell'Olio, Tracey Emin, Bruce Jones and reality star Chantelle Houghton.
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The Dark Side Of Fame is produced by Crackit Productions North.
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Front Desk
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Darwin's Garden (working title) Factual
±«Óãtv Two
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Jimmy Doherty tells the untold story of Darwin the experimental scientist.
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By recreating many of the astonishing experiments that Darwin did after he returned from the Galapagos and his world trip, Jimmy explores the theory of evolution in an original and fresh way.
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Darwin did hundreds of experiments which gave him the courage to publish his revolutionary ideas – including his breakthrough work, The Origin Of Species.
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It's not surprising, therefore, that the experiments in Darwin's garden cover an extraordinary breadth of themes.
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The series, comprising three 60-minute programmes, has been filmed largely in the gardens of Down House in Kent, where Darwin lived and carried out many of his experiments.
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But Jimmy also travels to other parts of the country to meet many of the modern-day scientists who still rely heavily on the work of this Victorian genius.
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MJ
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Days Like This Factual
±«Óãtv Radio Scotland
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Irvine Welsh, Hardeep Singh Kohli, Roddy Woomble, Jamie Andrew, Evelyn Glennie and Siobhan Redmond present a brand new series, Days Like This.
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Together ±«Óãtv Radio Scotland and the Scottish Book Trust are creating a true-story archive of Scotland asking listeners to write their story about a significant day in their lives.
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It could be the day they were lost in the supermarket, or the day they didn't get married – anything, as long as it's true.
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As well as being archived online, some of these fascinating stories will be featured on Days Like This on ±«Óãtv Radio Scotland and there will also be a book with some of the best stories published next year.
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SV
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Dear Green Place Comedy & Entertainment
±«Óãtv One Scotland
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BAFTA Scotland award-winning Dear Green Place is back for a brand new series with all the usual cast including Still Game stalwarts Ford Kiernan and Paul Riley.
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The intrepid parkies will ponder life's biggest themes with beetles, spiders and goats being the order of the day – plus new cast members including an alcoholic wife and a Geordie assassin.
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As the world awaits the outcome of the US presidential election on 4 November, all the big questions will have already been answered with the start of the new series of Dear Green Place at the end of October.
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Dear Green Place was written by Paul Riley and Mark Cox (Still Game), and directed by Don Coutts.
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It is produced by Effingee Productions and the Executive Producer for ±«Óãtv Scotland is Ewan Angus.
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SV
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Desperately Seeking Doctors Factual
±«Óãtv Two Scotland
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In this new two-part documentary series – Desperately Seeking Doctors – Dr Mary Fortune is whisked from the North East of Scotland to the middle of the Australian desert after responding to an advert for doctors in a medical magazine.
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The Australian Health Service has a chronic shortage of doctors and, in an effort to bolster their numbers, they advertise and recruit doctors from all over the world.
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For 25 years Dr Fortune has worked as a General Practitioner in Scotland: "I wanted to do something different, but still in medicine," she explains as she packs her bags in preparation for the gruelling 37-hour journey.
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During her three-month placement, Mary will be separated from her teenage son, Tom, and her husband, Alistair.
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"We've been married 22 years, and we've only ever been separated for 10 days, so going off on my own is going to feel really strange."
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Desperately Seeking Doctors is produced and directed by Stuart Greig and the Executive Producer for ±«Óãtv Scotland is Ewan Angus.
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SV
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Ed & Oucho's Excellent Inventions Children's
C±«Óãtv
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Ed and Oucho are travelling around the country making children's fantasy inventions come to life whilst under pressure from the Big Big Cheese.
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They go to the child's house and, with the help of the "brainstormer helmet", they extract the invention ideas from the child.
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Unfortunately neither Ed nor Oucho have much science knowledge so, through trial and error, they find out how and why certain things work and the best way to make the invention come to life.
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Along the way they call on friends to help them. These take the form of comedy characters played by Ed.
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Ed, Oucho and the child test all sorts of weird and wonderful things to get to the bottom of why things work, and finally, they test their invention.
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Front Desk
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Get 100 Children's
C±«Óãtv
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Presented by Hardeep Singh Kohli, the aim of this game is to sabotage your opponents and get closest to 100 to win.
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Get 100 is a game of knowledge, strategy and risk, where the outcome can change with every question.
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There are four players, three losers and only one winner.
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The high-stakes, high-pressure game show has an air of dramatic tension, where strategy is as important as smarts, and everything can change in a second.
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Front Desk
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Girls Behind Bars Factual
±«Óãtv One Scotland
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The series Girls Behind Bars follows daily life for the women in Cornton Vale Prison.
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From drug addicts and prostitutes to sex offenders and murderers, Cornton Vale houses all of Scotland's 400 female prisoners.
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Filmed over a period of eight months, the observational documentary series, made by Friel Kean Films, charts the intimate stories of several inmates as they struggle to deal with life on the inside.
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The series establishes close relationships with the prisoners, finding out about their crimes, lives and hopes of a different future.
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Girls Behind Bars is the first time cameras have had such unrestricted access to every aspect of a women's jail, and shows how women cope with traumatic family backgrounds, drug addiction and incarceration in a prison.
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HM
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God On Trial Drama
±«Óãtv Two
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God On Trial is a 90-minute drama for ±«Óãtv Two written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, his first television project in ten years.
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It takes as a starting point the story that prisoners in Auschwitz, their faith tested by their suffering and the barbarity of the Nazis, put God on trial.
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The charge is that God has broken his covenant with his chosen people to protect and care for them; the trial takes place in a camp blockhouse over the course of one day around a selection of those prisoners who are going to be taken to the gas chamber.
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God On Trial stars Sir Antony Sher, Rupert Graves, Jack Shepherd, Stephen Dillane, Dominic Cooper, Stellan Skarsgard, Lorcan Cranitch, Rene Zagger, Eddie Marsan and Blake Ritson.
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It is a Hat Trick production for ±«Óãtv Scotland.
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AN
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Gordon Smith: From Player To Power Sport
±«Óãtv One Scotland
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Just over a year ago the board of the Scottish Football Association broke with tradition and handed their top job to a former player.
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In an organisation with a reputation for bureaucracy and blazers, Gordon Smith is determined to change the image and the fortunes of Scottish football.
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This documentary is a snap shot of a hectic year which was not short of high profile stories.
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The film gets the inside track as the former player, agent and pundit tackles some big issues including finding a new manager and striking deals to keep the business of football running smoothly.
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There are also insights into the football chief's relationship with the media and his reaction to key moments, including the World Cup draw in South Africa.
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JG2
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Hedz Children's
C±«Óãtv
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Anarchic celebrity sketch satire comes to life as actors don masks of famous faces and bring on the parody.
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Characters include the womanly Wayne Rooney twins and superhero Beyonce who uses her butt to save the world.
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Tiger Hood saves the day with golf clubs, Lewis Hamilton races the Queen and Gordon Ramsay's head explodes in the fun sketch show.
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Front Desk
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How Reading Made Us Modern Factual
±«Óãtv Four
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To truly understand how we became modern you have to understand when Britain started reading en masse, how they read, and the sort of things that they were reading.
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By the end of the 18th century, being "modern" meant, above all, being a reader.
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Reading had gone from being a pursuit that was feared and controlled to being the cornerstone of self-improvement.
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This one-hour programme is presented by Professor John Mullan.
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Front Desk
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Landward Factual
±«Óãtv Two Scotland
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Landward returns for its autumn series to ±«Óãtv Two Scotland in late September.
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Nick Nairn, Sarah Mack and Euan McIlwraith report on the best stories from Scotland's countryside.
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From fabulous food to wonderful wildlife and stunning scenery, the team meet the people who make rural Scotland tick.
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In this series, Nick looks at what can be done to reduce food waste, Sarah looks at the future of crofting as a way of life and Euan follows the plight of some of Scotland's most endangered species.
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Throughout the series there will be great ideas for things to do and places to visit in Scotland's great outdoors.
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±«Óãtv Scotland Press Office
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Lazytown Extra Children's
CBeebies
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Ziggy, the ever popular candy loving character from LazyTown, is set to travel across the UK to discover children's favourite fun activities in a brand new series co-produced by ±«Óãtv Children's Scotland exclusively for CBeebies – LazyTown Extra.
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The series is an action packed magazine style show for 3 to 6-year-olds with each themed episode featuring all the LazyTown favourites.
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Each programme features children from across the UK showing adventure-loving Ziggy all about their favourite activities such as playing basketball, visiting the zoo, growing vegetables or splashing about in the swimming pool.
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While Sportacus shows the CBeebies audience an exercise of the day, Trixie and Stephanie are in the kitchen making fun SportsCandy recipes and Robbie Rotten creates his usual mayhem.
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In episode one Ziggy learns all about playing football.
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Front Desk
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Life Of Riley Comedy & Entertainment
±«Óãtv One
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Caroline Quentin will star in Life Of Riley, a new six-part series for ±«Óãtv One from ±«Óãtv Scotland which centres around second time newly-weds Rosie and Jim (Neil Dudgeon), with their dysfunctional family.
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The ever-optimistic Rosie (Caroline Quentin) suddenly finds herself at the head of a modern-day extended family made up of a complication of children, stepchildren, step-siblings and half-siblings – with a few ex-partners and in-laws thrown in.
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It is written by Georgia Pritchett (Smack The Pony), directed by Martin Dennis (Men Behaving Badly), and will be produced for ±«Óãtv Scotland by Catherine Bailey Productions Ltd.
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The Executive Producer is Alan Tyler.
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SV
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Limmy's Show Comedy & Entertainment
±«Óãtv Two Scotland
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Internet comedian Limmy makes the jump to TV in a brand new comedy half-hour that combines character pieces, visuals and sketches.
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Brian Limond, writer, web designer and performer has become something of a phenomenon thanks to his website.
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The popular site features videos, pictures, playthings and the World of Glasgow podcasts where Limmy plays a whole host of comic characters.
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Limmy's live show, Fresh for 08, proved a hit at the Glasgow and Edinburgh comedy festivals.
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Limmy's fans will be delighted to learn the cast-list of personae for his show includes hard-bitten ex-junkie Jacqueline McCafferty, urban menace John-Paul and zoned-out waster Dee Dee.
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Alongside characters honed on the web, Limmy's Show also includes a brand new collection of sketches and scenarios developed exclusively for ±«Óãtv Scotland.
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Limmy's Show is a Comedy Unit production for ±«Óãtv Scotland.
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JG2
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