on the show this week... west of england, wales, moving into northern england, into scotland as well. this is 3pm in the afternoon. the panto survivors keeping the show on the road. the native american woman making waves in the grand canyon. the roman empire's sunken party town. and how to run up a sand dune. not only will there be it's tough. a lot of heavy rain, it will be drier in the south east. ijust keep thinking, relentless forward motion, but the gusts just one step in of wind will reach around 60 mph three exposed front of the other. parts of the irish sea, 30—110 mph gusts of wind elsewhere. northern ireland will see that rain clearing to leave sunshine and some scattered showers, but a wet end to the day for much of scotland, northern england, wales and the south west. very mild once again, 13—14 degrees. we could see 15 celsius and one or two spots. that rain will continue its progression, across east anglia and the south east, during friday evening and overnight into saturday. so, again, it's an unsettled picture as we head through into the first part of the weekend. plenty of showers on the map first thing saturday, frost—free certainly once again with overnight temperatures between about 7—11 degrees to start off your weekend. hello, and welcome to so the weekend the travel show, coming will be dominated by an area of low to you from the festive windsor. pressure sitting now, in spite of the glimmers out towards the north—west. of hope we are hearing we're going to be seen showers rotating around on the news, for many of us, that area of low pressure, travel is still impractical. driven in on quite a brisk but never fear, because we are south westerly wind, so still quite a mild here to bring you inspiration direction, but a little amid all these dark bit cooler than it's been over recent days. and gloomy nights. lots of scattered showers, most of them in the west first, though... and along some of these this is bbc news. exposed southern coasts as well. our top stories: for britain's theatres, sunny spells, nowhere immune christmas can only mean one to catching one or two showers, thing — panto! singing, dancing, comedy, romance and belting but generally driest in the east. nigerian officials say more catchphrases. temperatures still around about 10—12 degrees, a touch down on recent days. than 300 schoolboys taken captive by gunmen last heading on into the second week are safe and well half of the weekend, and on their way home. and it's a fairly similar story, with a mix of sunny spells and a few scattered showers, a moroccan man is sentenced to again mainly in the north and west, life in prison for attempting oh, no, it wasn't! but some coming in along to kill passengers children: oh, yes, it was! the english channel as well. on a french high—speed train. not quite as warm we speak to one of the by this stage, passengers who overpowered all based in a traditional temperatures around the gunman. about 8—11 degrees on sunday. fairytale setting. stays unsettled and a touch cooler as we head into long story short, spencer stone pantomime has every the middle part of next week. 00:02:39,877 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 bye for now. ingredient needed for a fun choked him unconscious family night out. except in 2020, many of our while i hit him in the much—loved pantomimes don't have a stage to perform on. head with his ak—47. with only a limited number of shows still running us cyber security experts say across the country this year, a major hacking campaign panto, like the majority uncovered this week of the arts, has been dealt posed a "grave risk" to the government's nuclear stockpile. politicians are blaming russian intelligence. a heavy blow by covid. and the british actor jeremy bulloch, who played boba fett in the original star wars trilogy, has data from play association uk theatre revealed ticket income from its members‘ productions grossed £60 million last year, the highest amount ever. this winter, however, things couldn't be more different, and for many much—loved regional theatres, it's had a devastating impact. lincoln, for instance, is normally brimming with christmas magic in december. not this year, though. it's hugely devastating, and when we took on the theatre in 2016, it was completely on its knees. it was in desperate need of some tlc, its reputation was, erm, was dreadful, so we had a real hard slog and a battle to win the hearts and minds of the community, never mind the industry. and throughout our 4—year journey, we got several awards. 0ur pantomime that we just did last year, robin hood, was nominated in the top five pantomimes in the country for the british panto awards as best pantomime, which was huge, it was brilliant. and we really worked hard to get to that stage, and for it to so abruptly stop and bejust culled instantly wasjust like, yeah, i can't even put into words how soul—destroying that was. pantomime‘s origins can be traced back to italian street theatre in the early 16th century. from there, they spread across europe from italy to france before becoming popular in the uk. i've got to say, i've always had a real affection for pantomime since i was a child and then i took my children to the theatre. but you know what? i've got a sneaking sympathy, affection for the bad guy in pantomime, because the bad guy, you know, everyone boos and hisses them but actually, they‘ re really important. hang on, hang on, hang on a minute. it's notjust the bad guys who are important in panto, it's also the good guys — and i happen to be one of them as well. why are you important, basil brush? really, when you are in pantomime, it's about good winning over evil, it's a very moral story nowadays, you see, and i think that's very important, if you have the bad guys everybody boos and the good guys who get the cheer. yay! basil, i've got to say you are a veteran of pantomime, you've been doing it for decades and decades. this year has been tough. what effect has it had on you and your colleagues in theatre land 7 i've got to tell you, it's been one of the most toughest years since ever. i've been a furloughed fox since march. but you see, i was supposed to be at the glastonbury festival and the edinburgh festival and i had a very full diary and it was pulled like most other entertainers but actors and musicians and performers are a very versatile bunch, they are good at getting other jobs because unemployment is part of being an actor, but this year was particularly terrible because those of the jobs didn't exist. they couldn't go and work in restaurants and shops and all of that so for most actorfriends of mine, and musicians, this has been a terrible year. while there have clearly been a lot of covid—related panto closures this year, there is a glimmer of hope. some productions are still happening, like this one, cinderella at theatre royal windsor. i better go start pampering myself and getting ready for the royal ball. laters, losers. the theatre, and our director, had just done the most amazing job. i can't imagine the hours that were put in, so that we're all safe, the audience is safe, and staging it, because as you do your lines, wherever someone moves to, you've got to keep that distance so if there are other lines you move around to out of the corner of the eye, you just have to see that you're in line. tell me about how bad the impact is on a theatre if it has had to cancel pantomime this year? economically, it's incredibly important to theatres, so those that can't do anything this christmas, unless they've been able to replace that income in some way, they are finding that incredibly difficult. but the other thing is pantomime is the lifeblood of audience development for theatres as well. it's the time of year when children experience theatre, often for the very first time in their lives. it was the case with me in the wooden theatre many, many years ago with cilla black in aladdin, i can remember it years ago, but pantomime is incredibly important for the theatre world on multiple levels, and i think theatres are going to miss it economically, they're going to miss it in terms of development, they're going to miss it in terms of outreach into their community. one, two, three, four, five, six. here at theatre royal in windsor the running costs of staging cinderella are £50,000 a week. they say that with reduced capacity because of covid restrictions, they pretty much need to sell out to make it all financially viable. maybe this being a prince isn't all it's cracked up to be? in terms of the kind of compromises you've had to make, what are they, and where are they obvious? well, the big obvious one is social distancing in the auditorium, and so we are limited to 50%, so it's every other row of seats. and we've had to make changes to our ventilation system as well, and we are spraying the auditorium with antiviral disinfect before every performance. and then on the staging of the show, we've had to work quite carefully to make sure we're working in fixed teams with managing social distancing backstage as well, and also things like audience participation, we don't want singing and cheering along because it can lead to aerosol transmission, so we are having to tweak the way we do things, to keep the magic of pantomime but make sure we're doing it in a secure way. it's clear to see that because of covid, many regional theatre pantos have had a severe knockback this year. but in 2021, you can tell it's such a big part of british tradition, it'll be back even stronger. well, let's hop over the atlantic now and head, like 6 million others every year, to the grand canyon. until recently, no navajo woman had ever been given a licence to run tours of the site. well, we've been over there to meet the guide who is changing all that. my name is nikki cooley and i'm from the towering house clan born through the reed people the clan. my maternal grandparents are of the water that flows together clan and my paternal grandparents many goats clan, and i come from shonto and blue gap, arizona, and this is how i always introduce myself to anyone as a navajo woman. when commercial river guiding started in the grand canyon, it was primarily dominated by men, and women were only allowed to be helpers, or the cooks, or spouses of the male river guides, and so when i received this invitation from my friend, it was an invitation i took up very quickly. i grew up on the navajo reservation with my paternal grandparents, as my parents were out working. i grew up in shonto, arizona and blue gap, arizona, where i had no running water or electricity but i also grew up herding sheep, i grew up raising corn and squash and other crops with my grandparents. i rode horses, and really living off the land. i was very fortunate to grow up with my elders, who taught me to respect and care for the earth. when i was a river guide, i would get a lot of people saying, "tribes are extinct, i didn't know that tribes still existed," when, in fact, we are alive, we are prospering — wejust want to be acknowledged. mather point overlook provides that opportunity. it teaches them and it shows them that the tribes are still here and living, and they are not extinct, and that this place is a place of spiritual and cultural significance of the tribes. my heritage, my culture is very important to me because the environment, mother earth and father sky, are very much intertwined with my daily life. my clans are all related to the earth. my life's work in working with tribes on climate change is very much intertwined with the waters, the sky, and the animals. for native and indigenous people, we have a long and rooted history with the environment and the sky, the waters, in the sense that we still honour those relationships each day. stay with us, because still to come on the travel show, the roman empire's sunken party town. and i wonder if your idea of a fun run involves sand and dunes? well, it does in dubai. it's a great sense of achievement when you get up to the top and you run down the other side. so don't go away. the next in our series now exploring the future of our past. amanda ruggeri's been looking at some of the brand—new tech letting scientists uncover and restore some stunning archaeological treats. this week it's italy, and the sunken treasure not far from the city of naples. here in italy, in the gulf of naples, the ancient roman city of baiae has been explored by archaeologists and travellers for years. what many people come here for actually lies underwater, and this incredibly preserved site cannot last forever. so i have come to see firsthand how a centuries—old problem is finding a 21st century solution. baiae was a luxury resort with incredible architectures connected with the most eminent men of the late republic and early imperial times. the ancient authors wrote a lot about baiae, and they described baiae as ‘little rome,‘ as a place for the holiday. a place crowded with all the aristocracy, but also with young people, with people working on the beach, looking to the sea, people drinking wine. how much did the water level rise? it depends on the part of baiae, but normally between four and six metres. wow. that's why you can see underwater not only the floors but also the walls. there are no other sites in the world with this concentration of mosaics from the roman times, underwater. the roman partygoers were drawn to the city's hot springs, but it was the same underground volcanic activity which eventually sank the city's ground level, leaving its ruins underwater. even today, the roman architecture remains under threat from volcanic activity, but being underwater brings other challenges to the artefacts too. especially places that are not protected by layers of sand. if they are on the seabed, open, not covered by the sand, they are attacked by marine organisms. and we call it bio—erosion. for example, this is the reason why some statues that are recovered from the sea are completely destroyed, or partially destroyed by the bio—erosion. i was invited to join the team testing new technologies to help better monitor the erosion, but also help the public engage with the site in new ways. so which technologies are you testing this week? this week we are testing underwater drones, underwater wireless sensors which gather data on the conservation status of this site, and also images that we can transmit in real—time from the underwater environment. so finally, it was time for me to go down and see it for myself. under the water, a whole world opens up. the sculptures here are replicas. the real ones are safe aboveground in the nearby archaeological museum. but the other artefacts, from the walls to the mosaics, are original. it's extraordinary to see it all in person, and to learn how these innovations could dramatically improve the way the site is preserved by archaeologists and experienced by travellers. using a new way of communicating underwater information and pictures about any problems in the site, like erosion or even looting, can be communicated much more quickly. and the 3d imagery gives tourists a whole new way to experience the site, letting them imagine what it would have actually looked like. we have developed a way to represent how this underwater cultural heritage site was in the past, using virtual reality, so you can actually have an experience without visiting the site, and you can also chat in a whatsapp—like manner with the rest of the divers and your loved ones on the other side of the planet and exchange images, or exchange your feelings, even when you are diving. we are supporting the archaeologists and they will be able to find more, faster, and at the same time i think they will be safer in the way they actually excavate the site, and hopefully also common people will be able to enjoy, through, you know, the 3d reconstruction, what the archaeologists excavate for us. this is going to change, actually, whatever we are able to do in terms of exploring and understanding this environment. amanda there in the sunken city of baiae. now, there aren't many warmer places at this time of year than the deserts around dubai. that's where some locals, after months of restrictions — and weight gain — are taking on the dunes in a bid to shake off what's been a pretty tough year. we have been there to meet some of them. do you know your table number? four. four — you're this side, thank you very much. i'm juliejohnson, i'm recently new to ultramarathon running. i've been doing desert running for around a year. and i'm here today for the first desert run race of 2020. my typical race around the uae has usually been in the mountains or on the road, so this is going to be very interesting today, running seven dunes, i believe, so it's going to be a lot of fun. i've been running for seven years now, and the reason i started running was because it's a great way to stay fit. for the first two years, i absolutely hated it. it was hard, it hurt, and it was boring. but it was also rewarding. i started to lose weight and actually began to enjoy it. running on soft sand, though, is a whole different experience. gravity feels stronger, the sand seems to want to drag you down, and you get tired a lot quicker. five k here feels more like ten k on tarmac, and once you mix in the heat out here in the desert, it feels pretty brutal. getting there! i've always been a competitive person, but this is something totally new to me. in terms of technique, the trick is think light and keep moving. slow down and you get weighed down. and that's when it starts to get really hard. i'm about, just touching three kilometres, i think it is. 100 metres from three kilometres. it's tough, it's getting tougher now, because we're getting into bigger dunes. i haven't been counting! ijust keep thinking, relentless forward motion, just one step after the other. lockdowns and restrictions have been hard on everybody around the world, but to be out here in the desert, in the early morning, running and doing what i love again, just feels amazing. in a strange way, maybe because we couldn't get out here and do things like this during lockdown, it's made us appreciate what we've got on our doorstep here in dubai more. cheering. 50 minutes to do five kilometres over sand isn't bad. i'm really pleased with that, even if i could cover that distance in half that time on tarmac. for me it was never about winning, i just wanted to get out here, maybe to show that despite covid and the current restrictions, we can still take part in sport and do the things that we love. maybe a little differently, but we can still do them. congratulations. it was just a beautiful, beautiful run. seeing so many people out there, you can see that there are many out there for the very first time, to get their first experience in the desert, it really puts a smile on my face. and i'm sure they will be back for more. the hardest part, actually, was the very last dune, it was a real tough one. but it's a great sense of achievement when you get to the top and you run down the other side. the dune runners of dubai there. right, well, that's it for this week. coming up next time: santa in lockdown, and how he and the rest of lapland are missing all the girls and boys who normally pay a christmas eve visit at this time of year. until then, if you want to catch up with more of our recent shows, you can find us on the bbc iplayer, and we're on social media as well. we're in all the usual places. but for now, from me, rajan datar, and everyone else standing at a safe social distance from me here 00:23:26,039 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 in windsor, it's goodbye.

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