Timeshift
Timeshift is a TV show on BBC4. Documentary series which ranges widely over Britain's social and cultural history, its narrative-led storytelling offering a richly immersive and varied window onto the past. The program has been available since 2025. A total of 21 episodes have been broadcast, most recently in August 2026.
Last episode
Timeshift
Timeshift presents a bank holiday celebration of the British seaside holiday experience from its Victorian origins and heyday in the 1950s to its slow decline and attempts at reinvention since.
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Timeshift takes a loving and sometimes horrified look back at the iconic hairdos and 'must have' haircuts that both men and women in Britain have flirted with in the past 60 years.
Paul Atterbury travels around Britain finding out how the great ocean liners made such a mark on the popular imagination and why they continue to enchant.
Lucie Green looks back through Britain's most dramatic weather history and sees how our reactions helped forge a weather science that today allows us to predict the worst extremes.
Andrew Martin takes three railway journeys following the routes of three of the most famous named trains - the Flying Scotsman, the Cornish Riviera Express and the Brighton Belle.
Documentary bringing the story of the coach up to date, exploring the most recent phase of Britain's love affair with four-wheeled group travel from school trips to Indian treks.
A national obsession is explored in this archive-rich look at the evolution of the weather forecast from print via radio to TV and beyond - and at the changing weather itself.
Documentary that journeys back to the 1950s, when the coach was king. Those who had not travelled beyond their own villages and towns were given a taste of exploration and freedom.
To mark 100 years of romance publishers Mills and Boon, literary novelist Stella Duffy takes on the challenge of writing for them, a task that ends up being harder than it looks.
Documentary which digs into the archive to discover the unwritten rules that have governed the way we drink in Britain, from 1940s pubs and clubs to drinking at home or at work.
From early call boxes to the Post Office Tower, Timeshift tells the story of how Britain's phone network was built over the course of 100 years, and its impact on the public.
The pub has been a cornerstone of British society since medieval times. But in the past 50 years the pub has undergone massive change. Narrated by Arthur Smith.
Documentary which looks at why the most inhospitable place on the planet has exerted such a powerful hold on the imagination of explorers, scientists, writers and photographers.
Timeshift ventures inside places of sporting achievement, scientific endeavour and male obsession - the lofts of pigeon fanciers - to tell the story of a remarkable bird.
Episodes 2025
A look at the glamorous heyday of the international jet set from the 1950s to the 1970s, the golden age before celebrity became a dirty word. Contributors include Jackie Stewart.
The inside story of the design and construction of 'the most perfect suspension bridge in the world', and how its unique slimline structure arose by accident.
Documentary tracing the story of the ultimate sanction, examining such matters as the protocols of the public execution and the 'science' of hanging.
Documentary lifting the veil on the taboo that is corporal punishment, revealing a history spanning religion, the justice system, sex and education.
Mark Evans tells the surprising story of the hidden powerhouse behind the globalised world, the diesel engine, a 19th-century invention that has become indispensable to the 21st.
Documentary that tells the surprising story of how Britain entered a new age of steam railways after the Second World War and why it quickly came to an end.