Happy Birthday BBC Two

Stars and programme-makers look back at the early years of BBC Two in a programme first transmitted in 2004 to commemorate the channel's 40th birthday. After a disastrous power failure on the opening night, long-running series including Playschool and Match of the Day made their debuts and the channel became the first in the UK to broadcast in colour, with groundbreaking programmes including Kenneth Clark's documentary series Civilisation and the adaptation of Robert Graves's I, Claudius. Other series shown on the channel in its first decade include The Likely Lads, The Forsyth Saga, Pot Black, The Goodies and The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Stars and programme-makers come together to look back at landmark series from BBC Two, including the long-running arts series Arena and David Attenborough's natural history masterpiece Life on Earth. The channel became home to hard-hitting and groundbreaking drama including Law & Order, Boys from the Blackstuff, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Empire Road, as well as classic comedies such as Fawlty Towers and Yes, Minister. In the 1980s, documentary strand 40 Minutes was launched, politicians began to be grilled on Newsnight, Janet Street-Porter's 'yoof' slot DEF II went on air and The Late Show brought late-night cultural discussion to the nation's screens

For 50 years, BBC TWO has been at the heart of popular music in the UK, and this programme offers 50 great moments in music from across the decades. It is an exploration of popular music through the BBC TWO prism, featuring key live performances, documentary extracts and iconic presenters in action on the channel from 1964 to the present. BBC TWO's popular music values have always been pretty consistent. It has been a channel with a keen interest in live music performance, capturing new artists at important junctures in their careers, particularly live in the studio. Over the years, the channel's music reportage has tried to make sense and history out of popular music making. It has been a channel that has been part of creating history, from Joy Division's last performance on Something Else to The Stones Roses' power failure mid-song on The Late Show. The channel has seen John Lennon reciting poetry with Dudley Moore on Not Only But Also and Jools Holland chatting to Amy Winehouse about her musical inspirations, plus so many moments in between. It has also meant a host of great TV performances, from Patti Smith's Horses on Old Grey Whistle Test in 1976, Radiohead's Paranoid Android in 1997 on Later... with Jools Holland, to Beyonce headlining Glastonbury in 2011. This is a mosaic history of great music moments, from The Beat Room, Colour Me Pop to the Old Grey Whistle Test and then Something Else, Ebony, and Def II, Glastonbury and beyond.

50 Golden Years of Sport on BBC Two Sue Barker celebrates 50 glorious years of BBC Two sport with the help of Gary Lineker, Sir Ian Botham, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, Steve Cram, Alan Hansen, Clare Balding, Des Lynam, Murray Walker and comedian Alan Davies. The documentary reveals the origins of sport on BBC Two, including the creation of Match of the Day in 1964 and other iconic brands like Ski Sunday and Pot Black. It also relives many of the channel's greatest sporting moments including the 1985 snooker World Championship final, which was watched by a record-breaking 18.5 million viewers in the early hours of the morning; Botham's Ashes in 1981; Usain Bolt's 100m world record and many of the highlights of the Winter Olympics. There is also a chance to listen again to some family favourite TV theme tunes.

Quiz and celebration of 50 years of the BBC's second channel, hosted by Dara O Briain. With Richard Osman supplying extra facts and figures, celebrity teams and guest spots from the channel's past and present, All About TWO tells you everything you've ever wanted to know about the channel but didn't know you wanted to ask. It's part celebration, part quiz and all love.

A look back at some of BBC Two's most popular programmes, including Red Dwarf, Top Gear, Later... with Jools Holland, Gardeners' World and Have I Got News For You? In the 1990s, the channel was home to groundbreaking drama series such as Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Our Friends in the North and This Life, as well as the Screen Two strand of one-off films. The Death of Yugoslavia was a landmark documentary series chronicling the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, made and shown while the conflicts in the region were far from over. Meanwhile, Video Diaries allowed members of the public to make programmes about themselves. There is also a look at some memorable comedy moments from The Fast Show, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer and I'm Alan Partridge.

The series celebrating the story of BBC Two concludes with a look at more recent highlights, including comedy classics The Office, The League of Gentlemen, Goodness Gracious Me and Little Britain. As the channel approached its fifth decade on air, Two Fat Ladies and The Naked Chef redefined cookery shows, A History of Britain told the story of the British Isles, My Family and Autism opened viewers' eyes to an issue previously rarely seen on television and Anne Robinson became the quiz show host the country loved to hate in The Weakest Link. In drama, Stephen Poliakoff returned to BBC Two with Shooting the Past, Holocaust Memorial Day was marked with Conspiracy, which examined how Nazi officials decided upon the 'final solution', and there were bold looks at disability in Every Time You Look at Me and Flesh and Blood. Meanwhile, One Man and His Dog was cancelled, causing the channel's controller to face the fury of upset viewers, and Great Britons got the country debating who should be declared the greatest Briton of all time.

As part of its 50th birthday celebrations, BBC Two is allowing all-areas access to their precious comedy vaults. This programme pulls from the shelf some rare and unseen comedy moments from some of the greatest names in comedy. There are pilots which have never been broadcast before, including Miranda Hart's Joke Shop, Stephen Fry's first appearance as the quizmaster in QI and a sitcom from the band Madness, as well as rare comedy treats from Spike Milligan, Pete and Dud, Rik Mayall and Billy Connolly, and Sacha Baron Cohen's first incarnation of Borat, an Albanian called Christo. Packed with archive treasure illustrating how groundbreaking and innovative BBC Two has been for British comedy, insightful analysis is provided by the guest interviews which boast some of the biggest names in television.

50 Years Of BBC 2 Comedy celebrates the proud heritage the channel has in growing and supporting generations of successful comedy talent and making us laugh over five decades. From Fawlty Towers to The Wrong Mans, Spike Milligan to Shooting Stars, via The Office, M*A*S*H, Victoria Wood, The Fast Show and many, many others. Contributors to this two-hour-long look back at history include Armando Iannucci, Ricky Gervais, Prunella Scales, Vic & Bob, Michael Palin, Catherine Tate, Sanjeev Bhaskar, The Goodies, Terry Jones, Sarah Millican and Rebecca Front.

As part of the 50th anniversary of BBC Two, the channel has commissioned Harry and Paul to celebrate the occasion in their own unique way, and this they are doing - both ruthlessly and Reithlessly. Inspired by Harry Enfield's Emmy Award-winning mythical biography, Norbert Smith, and Harry and Paul Whitehouse's Question Time spoof, the BBC's head of comedy Shane Allen asked them to come up with their own unique biography of BBC Two. In this one-off comedy-drama, Harry and Paul, themselves popular fixtures of the channel for half the 50 years, dance through the story of BBC Two. They start with its painful birth, as 'Auntie Beeb' pushes out the now familiar logo into the arms of the attending BBC execs. This sets the tone as the shows romp through the story of Two's highs and lows, from World War One to imported Scandinavian dramas, via The Forsyte Saga, Tim Nice But Brooke Taylor, Late Night Line Up with Joan Bakewell Tart and Monty Python. It drops into The Office and Boys from the Blackstuff, Arena, Old Grey Whistle Test and The Apprentice among many others. The whole journey is set inside a Simon Schama documentary, with Simon, played by Harry, laconically walking through and linking this 50-year saga. Shot in the studio and on location, the show visits and parodies in the region of 50 different shows, and there are 150 of BBC Two's favourite presenters, actors, comics and politicians on parade, most of them portrayed by either Harry or Paul with a little help from their friends.