Programme Information

Formula 1 – Australian Grand Prix

Sunday 28 March

6.00-9.00am BBC ONE
1.00-2.55pm BBC ONE

• www.bbc.co.uk/f1

Jake Humphrey goes Down Under for the second race of the season

Jake Humphrey presents live coverage of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, the second race of the 2010 Formula 1 season.

The previous two races at Albert Park have been won by a Briton, with Jenson Button first across the line last year and Lewis Hamilton victorious in 2008.

However, this year the British pair also have to contend with returning legend Michael Schumacher, back in F1 after a three-year hiatus.

The German may be the wrong side of 40 but with four previous wins at Albert Park, few know the track better. Commentary comes from Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle.

Viewers have another chance to see this race at 1pm.

LW

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Aled Jones presents a special programme for Palm Sunday

Songs Of Praise marks Palm Sunday with Aled Jones in the market town of Knaresborough, North Yorkshire.

On Palm Sunday, Christ made a very public and triumphant entry into Jerusalem, arriving as a humble traveller on a donkey. And later in Holy Week a reminder of his humility came when, at the Last Supper, he washed the feet of his disciples and gave the commandment that they love one another.

Many churches and cathedrals still observe the ceremony of the washing of the feet every Maundy Thursday. But the Royal Maundy is a unique ceremony to Britain which reflects Christ's last commandment. Aled has come to Knaresborough to discover the roots of this important date in the Royal calendar.

The year 2010 is the 800th anniversary of the first historical record of a monarch being part of the ceremony. It was in Knaresborough, on 15 April, that King John gave money and clothing to 13 paupers.

Every year, Her Majesty The Queen presents special "Maundy money" to local pensioners in a UK cathedral or abbey. The organisation of the service falls to the Lord High Almoner and the Secretary to the Lord High Almoner – both members of the Royal Household.

Aled interviews the Lord High Almoner, currently Bishop Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester. He also interviews Paul Leddington Wright who, as Secretary to the Lord High Almoner, organises the service. Paul is also the conductor of tonight's Songs Of Praise. He is interviewed for the programme with his father, Peter Wright, who did the same job before him.

St John the Baptist Church, the parish church of Knaresborough, provides the main setting for the hymns, including: All Glory Laud And Honour; My Song Is Love Unknown; and Ride On, Ride On In Majesty. There is also music from the Choir of Derby Cathedral, Stainer's God So Loved The World, and, from Harry Bradford, a boy chorister with the Chapel Royal Choir who always sings with the host cathedral choir at the Royal Maundy service.

JP2

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Lark Rise To Candleford Ep 12/12

Sunday 28 March

8.00-9.00pm BBC ONE

• www.bbc.co.uk/drama

The railway has arrived in Inglestone and, with it, the unsettling news that the post office there is to become the main sorting office for the area, as the latest series of the period drama based on Flora Thompson's novel comes to an end. Mr Blakestone, the Inglestone postmaster, has long held a grudge against Dorcas, and she fears he may use his new power to undermine her.

Meanwhile, Fisher Bloom has admitted to Daniel that he aims to win Laura back. Laura is confused by her feelings. She loves Daniel, but his apparent ambivalence towards her leads her to question their relationship, and Fisher's romantic pursuit is beginning to have an effect.

Dorcas invites Blakestone to tea to try to restore good relations, but the postmaster sends Fisher in his place with an ultimatum – sell her post office to Blakestone and the staff will keep their jobs; or he will starve her business by sending mail out directly from Inglestone. Faced with the prospect of her staff losing their positions, Dorcas feels she has no choice but to sell up, even if it means denying Sydney his dream of being postmaster one day. However, when Thomas, Laura and Minnie learn what she is planning, they urge her to resist Blakestone's blackmail and find a way to fight him.

Daniel is heartbroken at the thought of losing Laura, so finds a distraction in mounting a campaign to help Dorcas. In this, he and Laura have a common cause. As she watches Daniel rallying support in Lark Rise to save the post office, she finds his passion for the cause intoxicating, and realises that she still has strong feelings for him. Fisher may be able to sweep her off her feet with romantic words, but she finally understands that this kind of youthful infatuation is fleeting, and that her love for Daniel is made of deeper, longer-lasting stuff.

Buoyed up by the support of her friends and neighbours, Dorcas comes up with an ingenious plan to outwit Blakestone. However, will she succeed in saving the post office, and will a very important visitor be her saviour?

Dorcas is played by Julia Sawalha, Fisher Bloom by Matthew McNulty, Daniel by Ben Aldridge, Laura by Olivia Hallinan, Sydney by Edward Darnell-Hayes, Thomas by Mark Heap and Minnie by Ruby Bentall.

Lark Rise To Candleford is simulcast on the BBC HD channel – the BBC's High Definition channel, available through Freesat, Sky and Virgin Media.

CM4

Jill Douglas plays host as the World Track Cycling Championships draw to a close with what should be a thrilling final day's action in Ballerup, Denmark.

Olympic legend Sir Chris Hoy will be desperate to reclaim the men's sprint title he was unable to defend last year after a serious fall at this venue in the World Cup final. Hoy has looked sharp so far this year and has gone below the 10-second barrier in 200m time-trial qualifiers at three meetings in a row.

Another British Olympic gold medallist, Victoria Pendleton, is expected to go for glory in the women's keirin. Interest in this event has grown dramatically since it was confirmed as an Olympic event for 2012 and Pendleton will face stiff competition from China's Guo Shuang, Australia's Anna Meares and Lithuania's Simona Krupeckaite. The men's omnium will also be introduced as an Olympic event at the London Games. Competition is sure to be fierce for this event, which comprises five races of differing lengths. Hugh Porter and Chris Boardman are the commentators.

SB4

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Tropic Of Cancer – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman

Sunday 28 March

8.00-9.00pm BBC TWO

• www.bbc.co.uk/tropicofcancer
• Feature
• Press pack

Simon Reeve meets a local Nubian guide at the spectacular ancient ruins of Abu Simbel

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.

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.

Reaching Egypt's remote southern coast, Simon dives in the pristine coral reefs of the Red Sea before crossing the water to Saudi Arabia.

Despite the kingdom's strict religious culture, Simon finds a more surprising side of Saudi life, as he meets young men from the Jeddah Boyz car gang who love to pimp their rides, modifying and personalising their expensive cars.

At the Jeddah Raceway, Simon tries a few tricks in a borrowed Porsche 911, and learns that the authorities are keen for disaffected young Saudi men to let off steam by playing with cars rather than joining militant groups.

Simon then heads to the capital, Riyadh, with his female guide to discuss high heels, underwear and women's emancipation in a flash shopping mall.

Further east across the desert Simon discovers stalled building projects in Dubai, the surreal and spectacular mega city in the sand. However, as well as absorbing the glamour, he meets some of the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from India and Bangladesh who travelled to Dubai in search of work, and hears their horrifying stories of hardship and exploitation.

Crossing the border, Simon arrives in his last stop: Oman – which could not be more different from its brash neighbour. In the ancient city of Niswa, goats are still traded in the livestock market and, amid temperatures of 40C, Simon takes a dip in ice-cold mountain pools.

The government of Oman is keen to protect and promote its wildlife and, at the most easterly point in the Arabian peninsular, Simon finds rare giant green turtles laying eggs on a beach and watches baby turtles hatching and heading into the surf on their own epic journey.

PH

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This is the penultimate programme in a spell-binding series, in which Professor Brian Cox visits some of the most dramatic locations on Earth to explain how the laws of nature create astonishing natural wonders across the Solar System.

Standing on the edge of the most famous natural wonder on Earth, the Grand Canyon, Brian reflects on the apparent similarity between our home planet and Mars. A photograph of the cliff face of the canyon could be easily confused with photographs taken on Mars. And Mars also has a canyon. In fact, Mars has a canyon so immense that the Grand Canyon would fit neatly into one of its side channels. Yet, if one looks more closely it is apparent that Mars is a cold, geologically dead world; a global desert of ice and dust.

In this episode, Brian examines how the universal laws of nature that govern everything in the Solar System can produce such extraordinarily different worlds. He travels to the tallest mountain on Earth, the volcano Mauna Kea on Hawaii, to show how something as basic as a planet's size can make the difference between life and death. Even on the summit of this volcano, Brian would stand in the shade of the tallest mountain in the Solar System, a volcano on Mars called Olympus Mons, which rises up 27km. But this giant of the Solar System is long dead. No eruptions have refreshed the surface of Mars for billions of years and the lack of volcanic eruptions is at the heart of why Mars died.

The planet was killed off by its small size but Earth's other neighbour, Venus, is so similar to Earth that it has often been called its twin. And more volcanoes have been spotted on Venus than any other planet in the Solar System. However, like Mars, it all went wrong for Venus millions of years ago. Gazing over the vista of the Deccan Traps in India, Brian explains how the remnants of the massive outpouring of lava that stretches out for hundreds of thousands of square kilometres is a small echo of what happened to Venus, and how a massive volcanic outpouring set the planet on a path to self-destruction.

The fifth wonder in the series isn't on a planet at all – it's on a tiny moon of Jupiter, Io. This fragment of rock should be cold and dead. With the volcanic landscape of Eastern Ethiopia as a backdrop, Brian reveals why the rocky surface of Io rises and falls by as much as 100 metres each day, and why that has made Io home to the largest volcanic eruptions in the Solar System, with giant plumes erupting 500km into space.

VAA

Viewers can enjoy highlights from the second race of the 2010 Formula 1 season, held at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne.

Reigning drivers' champion Jenson Button is aiming to match last year's flying start to the season. However, the likes of Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso will all be out to stop him.

LW

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With their undercover love quests at an end, Princess Xenia, Princess Sheillah and Princess Aaliya return to their kingdoms and their privileged lives.

Joining them are their guests from the UK, who have come to the princesses' homeland to experience life from a royal point of view.

Viewers can find out which of them – if any – found true love in Essex.

KS3