The BEST episodes directed by Joseph Cunningham

#1 - Swanwick to Brownsea Island

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 9 - Episode 5

Michael Portillo builds a bivouac with a group of scouts and learns about war horses.

#2 - Kingston upon Hull to Malton, North Yorkshire

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 9 - Episode 11

#3 - York to Frizinghall

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 9 - Episode 12

#4 - Sheffield to Nantwich

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 9 - Episode 13

#5 - Criccieth to Caernarfon

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 9 - Episode 15

With his Edwardian Bradshaw's railway guide tucked under his arm, Michael Portillo begins the last leg of his journey from Hull to Caernarfon. In picturesque Snowdonia, he braves the fastest zip line in the world - stretching 1,500 feet across a vast slate quarry. He uncovers a bitter industrial dispute between quarrymen and the owner of the pit, Lord Penrhyn, which divided the community at the beginning of the 20th century.Riding north Wales's splendid heritage railways, Michael visits the home of British mountaineering, Pen y Gwryd, to hear how an Edwardian journalist and poet created a climbing community, which grew to include men who would conquer Everest in the 1950s. Michael meets the grandson of one of his political heroes, the Edwardian Prime Minister David Lloyd George, at his birthplace in Criccieth. At the impressive 13th-century fortress of Caernarfon, built by English King Edward I, Michael discovers the early 20th-century history behind the ceremony now traditional at the royal investiture of a Prince of Wales.

#6 - Chichester to Cowes

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 9 - Episode 4

Michael Portillo encounteres an Edwardian motoring due patronised by King Edward VII.

#7 - Cromer to Cambridge

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 9 - Episode 1

Michael Portillo takes a pot shot at the sport of kings at a country estate.

#8 - Croydon to Shoreham-by-Sea

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 9 - Episode 3

Michael Portillo uncovers a once-celebrated, now forgotten composer with an uncannily familiar name.

#9 - Dromod to Sligo

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 8 - Episode 14

With his Victorian Bradshaw's guidebook in hand, Michael Portillo crosses the Emerald Isle uncovering Irish identity, forged at a time of political strife. Travelling through the beautiful landscape, Michael learns how it inspired one of the 20th century's greatest poets, WB Yeats.

#10 - Letchworth Garden City to Herne Hill

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 9 - Episode 2

Michael Portillo discovers a favoured haunt of King Edward VII.

#11 - Gainsborough to Ely

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 8 - Episode 9

Steered by his Bradshaw's railway handbook to Gainsborough, Michael Portillo wraps his head around an ingenious Victorian machine which changed shopping forever. In Lincoln, he discovers the verse and popularity of 19th-century Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and finds poetry thrives today in a city pub.

#12 - Navan to Mullingar

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 8 - Episode 13

Michael gets up to speed with modern archaeology in County Meath and uncovers a controversial Victorian dig at the sacred Hill of Tara. He investigates leaping salmon in Leixslip and discovers an electrifying breakthrough at an historic seminary. At Mullingar, Michael bangs the drum for the town's marching band.

#13 - Wexford to Wicklow

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 8 - Episode 11

Armed with his Bradshaw's Handbook, Michael Portillo begins a journey across Ireland. In the port of Wexford, he takes to the seas in a 100-year-old lifeboat and discovers a hero of the American navy. He tunes in to the Meeting of the Waters at the Vale of Avoca, then heads for Wicklow, where he learns of a Victorian project to combat sickness and disease in the capital, Dublin. Embracing the gentler pace of life of a traditional Irish traveller in Victorian times, he ends this leg in a beautiful horse-drawn, barrel-top caravan.

#14 - Ballina to Westport

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 8 - Episode 15

On the last leg of Michael Portillo's long journey from Wexford to Westport, a fashionable Victorian seaweed bath is followed by a steamy scene in Ballina. On tenterhooks in Foxford, Michael discovers the visionary charity of an entrepreneurial nun. He learns of a double tragedy at Clew Bay and begins a pilgrimage to the summit of Ireland's holy mountain, Croagh Patrick.

#15 - Manchester Piccadilly to Silkstone Common

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 8 - Episode 7

Michael Portillo's journey from the Irish Sea to the North Sea continues by tram from Manchester. At the imposing town hall of the world's first industrial city, Michael comes face to face with the Victorian scientist who invented modern atomic theory. He then heads to the city's National Graphene Institute, where he learns to make the groundbreaking material invented there by two Nobel prize-winning scientists. His Bradshaw's leads him to an 18th-century settlement built by refugees from Europe.

#16 - Chapeltown to Doncaster

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 8 - Episode 8

From Chapeltown, Michael heads to Wharncliffe Crags, where he plucks up courage to follow in the terrifying footholds of the Victorian daredevil who made rock climbing a sport. The relative calm of academia beckons at Sheffield University but, face to face with a hagfish, Michael's visit to the Alfred Denny Collection proves an eye-opener.

#17 - Stowmarket to Harwich

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 8 - Episode 10

Michael Portillo is on the final leg of his journey following the route of the North Country Continental service to Harwich. Along the way, he meets volunteers on the Mid-Suffolk Light railway and is allowed to drive The Middy. In Leiston, Michael uncovers an intriguing industrial pioneer - the world's first purpose-built assembly line.

#18 - Liverpool to Dolgarrog

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 9 - Episode 14

#19 - Greystones to Dublin

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 8 - Episode 12

At Trinity College, Dublin, Michael Portillo discovers one of Ireland's greatest treasures and learns how it became the symbol of the nation. There is a chance to sample the black stuff in a Dublin pub before Michael learns how Victorian royals were deployed to calm rocky relations between Britain and Ireland. He explores the magnificent house and gardens of Powerscourt in County Wicklow. Finding an angle on triangulation helps Michael to understand how Ireland was put on the map - and why.

#20 - Blackpool to Manchester Victoria

Great British Railway Journeys - Season 8 - Episode 6

On a new journey across Bradshaw's Britain with his Victorian guidebook. He makes potent new friends in Fleetwood then heads to Manchester, where George Stephenson built the world's first modern railway line. This epoch-defining achievement is being incorporated into a new multi-million pound rail link between Manchester's Victoria and Piccadilly stations and Michael lends a hand with the welding. At a moving ceremony in Manchester Piccadilly station, Michael unveils a new monument to 87 railwaymen of the London and North Western Railway, who lost their lives in the Great War.