John Simpson

Unspun World provides an unvarnished version of the week's major global news stories - reliable, honest and essential viewing with the BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson.

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Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the BBC's John Simpson goes back to examine his reports and consider why history did not turn out quite the way he expected.

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18 years after his last film, (The Troubles We've Seen), Marcel Ophuls emerges from retirement as one of our last masters, the most corrosive, the funniest as well. And the most forceful. The director of The Sorrow and the Pity shares with us stories of his exceptionally rich life in this light-hearted yet bitter escapade though the century and the movies. Son of the great Max Ophuls, he is generous in his admiration. We also meet Jeanne Moreau, Bertolt Brecht, Ernst Lubitsch, Otto Preminger, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick and of course François Truffaut. There are no great filmmakers without a memory, so here is the memory shop of Marcel Ophuls.

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Well-known faces don their aprons in this charity special. Who has got what it takes to go all the way and compete for the Great Sport Relief Bake Off crown?

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Antiques experts accompany celebrities on a road trip around the UK searching for treasures and competing to make the most money at auction

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Three iconic adventurers - newsman John Simpson, polar explorer Ranulph Fiennes and solo yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston - go on a newsgathering trip to war-torn Afghanistan, attempt to sail around the most notorious of all maritime landmarks, Cape Horn, situated at the southernmost tip of South America, and man-haul sledges across the frozen sea ice of the Canadian Arctic.

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Nicky Campbell hosts a series of moral, ethical and religious debates.

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A comedic panel show featuring team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell plus two guests per side, hosted by Rob Brydon (formerly Angus Deayton). Each person must reveal embarrassing facts and outrageous lies during a series of different rounds including "Home Truths", "This Is My..." and "Quickfire Lies". It is up to the opposing team to tell tall tales from fantastic facts.

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A topical magazine-style daily television programme broadcast live on BBC One.

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Presented by Victoria Coren, it was companion to the Oxford English Dictionary's Wordhunt, in which the writers of the dictionary asked the public for help in finding the origins and first known citations of a number of words and phrases. The OED panel consisted of John Simpson, the Chief Editor of the OED; Peter Gilliver, who was also the captain of the Oxford University Press team in University Challenge - the Professionals; and Tania Styles, who also appeared in "dictionary corner" in Countdown.

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Graham Norton's Bigger Picture is a British comedy panel chat show launched on BBC One in 2005, in which presenter Graham Norton informally and satirically discusses the week's news with a panel of invited celebrity guests. The show begins with the celebrities being shown in mocked-up photographs of themselves in scenes involving other celebrities, and ends with the guests introducing other mocked up photographs that humorously explain the recent behaviour of other celebrities.

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A British genealogy documentary series in which celebrities trace their ancestry, discovering secrets and surprises from their past.

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To mark 50 years of BBC TV News, a look back on how stories were reported in each decade. Narrated by key figures including Charles Wheeler, Michael Buerk, Kate Adie, John Simpson and Jeremy Bowen.

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Ruby was a late-night talk show broadcast on BBC Two in the United Kingdom. The series premiered on 12 May 1997, and was hosted by writer and comedian Ruby Wax. In each episode Wax holds an unscripted roundtable discussion with up to five guests. Framed as a dinner party, guests included actors, writers, stand-up comedians, musicians, journalists and other well-known figures in the entertainment industry. A total of 48 episodes were broadcast between May 1997 and November 2000.

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Shooting Stars is a British television comedy panel game broadcast on BBC Two as a pilot in 1993, then as 3 full series from 1995 to 1997, then on BBC Choice from January to December 2002 with 2 series before returning to BBC Two for another 3 series from 2008 until its cancellation in 2011. Created and hosted by double-act Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, it uses the panel show format but with the comedians' often slapstick, surreal and anarchic humour does not rely on rules in order to function, with the pair apparently ignoring existing rules or inventing new ones as and when the mood takes them.

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Hilarious, totally-irreverent, near-slanderous political quiz show, based mainly on news stories from the last week or so, that leaves no party, personality or action unscathed in pursuit of laughs.

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Going Live! was a Saturday morning magazine show, broadcast on BBC1 between 1987 and 1993. It was presented by Phillip Schofield and Sarah Greene. Other presenters included Trevor and Simon, Peter Simon, Emma Forbes, and puppet Gordon the Gopher. The show was broadcast during the autumn to spring seasons, with other shows such as the 8:15 from Manchester and Parallel 9 taking over during the summer months. It was preceded by Saturday Superstore, and succeeded by Live & Kicking. In 1988, when the second series started, Greene was hurt in a helicopter crash with her then boyfriend, Mike Smith. Guest presenters stood in for her including T'Pau's Carol Decker. Similarly, in 1992-93 during the final series, Schofield was starring in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and was unable to present the show. A third presenter took his place. Originally, Neighbours actor Kristian Schmid took the role but soon left after problems with his work permit. Various other celebrities to stand in included Shane Richie and Robbie Williams during his Take That days.

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The clock is ticking as contestants compete in games of lexical dexterity and numerical agility.

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BBC series based on the novels by Georges Simenon which starred Rupert Davies as Inspector Maigret, a French police detective who preferred to watch and listen in order to solve crimes. The series ran from 1960-63 on British television.

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Three iconic adventurers - newsman John Simpson, polar explorer Ranulph Fiennes and solo yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston - go on a newsgathering trip to war-torn Afghanistan, attempt to sail around the most notorious of all maritime landmarks, Cape Horn, situated at the southernmost tip of South America, and man-haul sledges across the frozen sea ice of the Canadian Arctic.

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