BBC Four HD Today

Award-winning film-maker Terry Abraham returns to the Lake District to showcase Blencathra, looking at the lives of local residents, schoolchildren and tourists

Part one of two. Dan Snow examines how the Irish saved Britain from cultural oblivion between 400 and 800AD, when the collapse of the Roman Empire left Britain in tatters

English actor Christopher Eccleston looks back on the 1996 film version of Thomas Hardy's Jude, directed by Michael Winterbottom

A stonemason attempts to rebuild his life after his wife walks out on him, struggling to realise his dream of becoming a teacher. Emotional drama, starring Christopher Eccleston

Griff Rhys Jones goes to Dorset to find out why Thomas Hardy's wife tried to ban his last novel - Jude the Obscure

Documentary examining novels from three perspectives - the empire, class and, in this first film, women's voices, including extracts from Jane Austen and the Brontes

A profile of English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, who is famed as a deeply reserved and secretive man that put his most private feelings into his poems

Exploring the forests, plains and cities of Central Thailand, and revealing how the nation's people find spiritual fulfilment in their relationships with animals

Award-winning film-maker Terry Abraham returns to the Lake District to showcase Blencathra, looking at the lives of local residents, schoolchildren and tourists