The Great Explorers with James May • 2025

46:37

The actress flies over Tokyo in a helicopter. The city was bombed extensively during the Second World War, so almost all of it is a symbol of the post-war economic boom that saw Japan become the world's second largest economy. While in the capital, Joanna heads out to a nightclub to see a Japanese girl band and witnesses the largely male audience perform almost as much as the artists on stage. Later, Joanna travels to the Kiso Valley to walk the Nakasendo Way, an ancient route that once linked Tokyo to Kyoto, a place best known for that most famous of Japanese traditions, the Geisha.

Part 2 • Joanna Lumley's Japan • 2016 • Travel

134:03

Information Alexander Armstrong's amazing journey into the extraordinary world that is South Korea. Chapter 1: Seoul Alexander journeys across South Korea, one of the most influential and successful countries on earth, known for its manufacturing strength and cultural exports. He arrives late at night in bustling downtown Seoul, and kicks off his epic Korean adventure in Gangnam, the fabled district immortalised by Psy's Gangnam Style video. Helping to keep modern Korea on the global map are its YouTube stars, and Alexander wolfs down noodles with Heebab, a record-breaking Mukhbang 'bulk-eater', and meets Korean Billy, whose English accent impersonations are an online sensation. Chapter 2: Ulsan Alexander continues his exploration of the bustling capital Seoul, where he marvels at the splendour of the 14th century Gyeongbokgung Palace and takes in the colourful changing of the guard ceremony, before heading to the famous Yangnyeongsi herbal medicine market. Later, he takes a quick detour away from Seoul to the country's industrial capital Ulsan, where visits the cultural museum to find out the origins of South Korea's international hit series, Squid Game. Chapter 3: Busan On the last leg of his South Korean adventure, Alexander heads to the bustling port of Busan, where South Korea's biggest fish market is to be found. Alexander gets to try some of the weirdest seafood he has ever seen, fresh from the sea, including a couple of sea creatures that are so fresh they are still moving as he bites into them. Later, travels 180 miles across the Korea Strait from Busan to the island of Jeju, where he embarks on an exhilarating climb up an extinct volcano known as Sunrise Peak.

2022 • Travel

46:00

Throughout Burma, temples, stupas, and statues of gold pop out in the lush, green landscape. This golden architecture has become Burma's calling card, but how and why did that become the standard here? Join us as we travel across Myanmar, the jewel of Asia, and reveal the history and myths surrounding these shrines, each one created as an offering to the Buddha. We will visit such treasures as the golden pagoda of Mt. Kyaiktiyo, which rests perilously atop a huge boulder, the 344-foot Shwedagon Pagoda, and the revered Mahamuni Buddha Temple.

S1E1 • Wonders of Burma • 2015 • Travel

59:00

At the centre of this great sea, and surrounded by crystal clear waters, is Simon's first stop, the beautiful island of Malta. Driven by a surge of tourists, modern-day Malta is booming. But beneath the picture-postcard image lies a country accused of being a haven for money laundering and organised crime, where journalists can be murdered by car bombs. When Simon takes a ferry to his next destination, Calabria in southern Italy, he discovers a region in the grip of Europe's most powerful mafia, the 'Ndrangheta. With rare access to police and customs investigators, Simon follows an armed convoy carrying a ton of seized cocaine, joins a stakeout of a high-level suspect, and crawls through a huge underground warren of tunnels and bunkers built by fugitive mafia bosses. Travelling east along the southern tip of mainland Italy, Simon visits a turtle conservation centre, meeting Raoul, a loggerhead turtle rescued after swallowing huge quantities of plastic, a massive and increasing threat to Mediterranean wildlife. Simon helps release him back into the sea. Taking the overnight ferry from the heel of Italy, Simon arrives in one of the least-known but most beautiful corners of the Mediterranean, Albania. Under communist rule, Albania was isolated and shut off from most of the world. In a country now hoping for EU membership, Simon discovers an ancient culture of vendetta, where if an adult commits a crime, a child can be killed in revenge. Simon ends the first leg of his journey at a spectacular wildlife reserve where bird life is now recovering following the country's groundbreaking ban on hunting.

S1E1 • Mediterranean with Simon Reeve • 2018 • Travel

46:36

Martin Clunes visits the lush, tropical island of Hawaii to investigate the state's status as a tourist paradise, and the islands of Alaska.

S1E1 • Martin Clunes: Islands of America • 2019 • Travel

45:07

Bettany visits the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor where, for 500 years, the Ancient Egyptians buried their pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings, among them the boy-king Tutankhamun. However, the historian crosses the local hills to the Workers' Village, where generations of skilled royal tomb-builders lived. As it turns out, they also dumped masses of domestic rubbish, which is now giving some insight into the highs, lows and preoccupations of ancient Egyptians. Bettany then heads south on the Nile's oldest steam ship SS Sudan, which inspired Agatha Christie to write Death on the Nile.

S1E3 • The Nile: Egypt's Great River with Bettany Hughes • 2019 • Travel