Composer of the Week (9.00 am R3 and rest of week) is Haydn.
Start the Week (9.00am R4). Germaine Greer takes Jeremy Paxman’s place: among her guests are Ruth Deech, Amartya Sen and Philip Pullman.
What If? (10.00 am, repeated 1.00, 4.00, 7.00, 10.00 BBC Knowledge). Ronald Hutton and others suppose that Charles I had won the Civil War …
The Master and the Boy (11.00 am R4). George Bernard Shaw and his friendship with boxer Gene Tunney.
Last of the Medicine Men (7.30 BBC2). Benedict Allen in Tuva.
The New China (from 7.30 R3). The opening evening of a Chinese season, with reports from Isabel Hilton and features on the arts, religion and politics in the present-day People’s Republic. These include The Rise of the New Left (9.00), with Shen Lin, one of the authors of a musical about Che Guevara; The Emperor is Far Away (9.45), in which journalist Jasper Becker visits rural Henan; and The City of Eternal Spring (11.15), a portrait of the multiethnic city of Kunming in Yunnan province.
The Joy of Stress (8.00 C4). An alternative view of stress – are we moaning too much? Psychologists Angela Padmore and Rob Briner think so, while London GP Mike Fitzpatrick says the stress-therapy industry has a lot to answer for.
Operation San Pedro (8.00 R4). The CIA-inspired campaign that led to Cuban parents sending their children to the US in the 1960s, and the consequences today.
University Challenge (8.00 BBC2). Queen’s, Cambridge, vs. University of Wales College of Medicine.
What the Romans Did for Us (8.30 BBC2). After the Open University’s The Romans in Britain and a BBC2 Romans Day in August (to say nothing of the History Channel’s frequent re-runs), still more about the imperial overlords. This time it’s from BBC Science, so we have Adam Hart-Davis praising the Romans for their aqueducts, wine-making, mosaics and other alien practices introduced to ancient Britain – and trying out a variety of reconstructions; from a winepress to a bath-house.
Andes to Amazon (9.00 BBC2). The wildlife of South America – the first of six programmes.
Growing Science (9.00 R4). "Greenfingered boffins" are the focus of Pippa Greenwood’s new series.
War Months (9.00 Discovery Channel). Two more episodes: more North African battles, and the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
Meetings with Remarkable Trees (9.50 BBC2). A new series of ten-minute films based on Thomas Pakenham’s book of the same name. If they’re anything like the last series, they’ll be a delight.
Omnibus – William Blake, Singing for England (10.35 BBC1). Art historians (e.g. William Vaughan), poets (e.g. Tom Paulin) and others on Blake, to coincide with a big new exhibition at the Tate in London. See also Friday (Nov 10).
A History of Britain with Simon Schama (11.25 BBC1). A repeat of last week’s episode, largely about Henry VIII.
Martin Chuzzlewit (12 midnight UK Drama and rest of week, times vary). Re-run of David Lodge’s Dickens adaptation.