| 21 |
Shakespeare Live! From the RSC (2016) #511
FILM
Main,Disk
Directed by Bridget Caldwell, Gregory Doran, Robin Mason. With Catherine Tate, David Tennant, Akala, Richard Atwill. A celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, broadcast live at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. |
| 22 |
West Side Stories - The Making of a Classic (2016) #961
DOCUMENTARY-MUSIC
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1 hour. BBC. West Side Story is one of the best-loved musicals of all time. A modern-day Romeo and Juliet, its timeless story and exhilarating dance and music continue to excite audiences around the globe. Songs such as Maria, Somewhere, Tonight and America have all become some of the biggest hits in showbusiness. And yet, West Side Story had an uneasy birth and was even turned away by producers when it was first put together in the 1950s by Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins and Arthur Laurents. Now, as the world prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of West Side Story in 2017, dancer Bruno Tonioli and broadcaster Suzy Klein go in search of the true stories behind the inception of this classic show. For the first time on television, they hear first-hand from those involved in the show when it opened on Broadway in September 1957, including Sondheim himself, producer Hal Prince and original cast members from both show and movie, including Chita Rivera Carol Lawrence and Rita Moreno. With the BBC Symphony Orchestra and specially cast singers, we re-live some of the wonderful music and, in the company of Suzy and Bruno, we discover how West Side Story placed the 1950s phenomena of racial tension and teenage gangs centre stage to create a hit that changed musical theatre forever. |
| 23 |
John Berger: The Art of Looking (2016) #967
DOCUMENTARY
Main
BBC. 1 hour. Art, politics and motorcycles - on the occasion of his 90th birthday, this is an intimate portrait of the late writer and art critic whose groundbreaking work on seeing has shaped our understanding of the concept for over five decades. The film explores how paintings become narratives and stories turn into images, and rarely does anybody demonstrate this as poignantly as Berger. Berger lived and worked for decades in a small mountain village in the French Alps, where the nearness to nature, the world of the peasants and his motorcycle, which for him deals so much with presence, inspired his drawing and writing. The film introduces Berger's art of looking with theatre wizard Simon McBurney, film director Michael Dibb, visual artist John Christie, cartoonist Selçuk Demiral and photographer Jean Mohr, as well as two of his children - film critic Katya Berger and the painter Yves Berger. The prelude and starting point is Berger's mind-boggling experience of restored vision following a successful cataract removal surgery. There, in the cusp of his clouding eyesight, Berger re-discovers the irredeemable wonder of seeing. Realised as a portrait in works and collaborations, this creative documentary takes a different approach to biography, with Berger leading in his favourite role of the storyteller. |
| 24 |
National Theatre Live: Les Blancs (2016) #1289
FILM
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150mins. by Lorraine Hansberry Adapted by Robert Nemiroff Restored text directed by Joi Gresham. National Theatre at Home: Les Blancs An African country teeters on the edge of civil war. A society prepares to drive out its colonial present and claim an independent future. Tshembe, returned home from England for his father’s funeral, finds himself in the eye of the storm. Yaël Farber (Mies Julie, Nirbhaya) directs the final play by Lorraine Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun): a brave, illuminating and powerful work that confronts the hope and tragedy of revolution. This play is about imperialism, racism, and colonialism and contains some scenes of racially motivated violence, that some people may find distressing. This archive recording was captured by the National Theatre in 2016. |
| 25 |
National Theatre Live: The Deep Blue Sea (2016) #1291
FILM
Main
Helen McCrory (Medea and The Last of the Haussmans at the National Theatre, Penny Dreadful, Peaky Blinders) returns to the National Theatre in Terence Rattigan's devastating masterpiece, playing one of the greatest female roles in contemporary drama. Tom Burke (War and Peace, The Musketeers) also features in Carrie Cracknell's critically acclaimed new production. A flat in Ladbroke Grove, West London. 1952. When Hester Collyer is found by her neighbours in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt, the story of her tempestuous affair with a former RAF pilot and the breakdown of her marriage to a High Court judge begins to emerge. With it comes a portrait of need, loneliness and long-repressed passion. Behind the fragile veneer of post-war civility burns a brutal sense of loss and longing. |
| 26 |
Imagine: My Curious Documentary (2015) #898
DOCUMENTARY
Main
80 mins. BBC. Since opening at the National Theatre in 2013, the stage production of Mark Haddon's bestselling book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time has gone on to win seven Olivier Awards, and the Broadway production recently took New York by storm. The story in both the book and the play is told by a 15-year-old boy who finds other people frightening and confusing, and it has helped transform our understanding of a neurological condition that affects one in a hundred children. Imagine meets those involved in the play, from early rehearsals and research to stage performances in both London and New York. This is interwoven with moving testimony from other children and families on the challenges they face as they live with autism. |
| 27 |
National Theatre Live: Jane Eyre (2015) #1254
FILM
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With Benji Bower, Will Bower, Elly Condron, Craig Edwards. After a harsh childhood, orphan Jane Eyre is hired by Edward Rochester, the brooding lord of a mysterious manor house, to care for his young daughter. |
| 28 |
National Theatre Live: Treasure Island (2015) #1257
FILM
Main
With Patsy Ferran, Arthur Darvill, Raj Bajaj, Oliver Birch. It's a theatre adaptation of well known story of Jim Hawkins and his adventures in search of treasure on Treasure Island. |
| 29 |
An Inspector Calls (2015) #1372
FILM
Main
A mysterious Inspector investigates the wealthy Birling family and their dinner guests following the suicide of a young woman. An Inspector Calls is a play written by English dramatist J. B. Priestley, first performed in the Soviet Union in 1945 and at the New Theatre in London the following year. It is one of Priestley's best-known works for the stage and is considered to be one of the classics of mid-20th century English theatre. |
| 30 |
British Art at War: Walter Sickert and the Theatre of War (2014) #854
DOCUMENTARY
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1 hour. BBC. In the years preceding 1914, David Bomberg, Walter Sickert and Paul Nash set out to paint a new world, but, as the century unfolded, found themselves working in the rubble. Walter Sickert's early career as an actor is long forgotten and he's now remembered for his art. But he never left the stage behind. Always shape-shifting between roles, Sickert's appearance never stayed still. And his art, too, was in perpetual transformation. Dazzlingly original, deeply unsettling, poised on the brink of violence. For most, proof that Sickert is the godfather of modern British art, but for a few at the fringes, evidence he's Jack the Ripper. But Sickert was no perpetrator, just an unflinching witness, notably, to the cataclysm of World War One. Too old to fight in Flanders, Sickert painted edgy, compelling, subtle pictures of those who'd been left behind. He painted people trying to get on with lives that were being shattered by the conflict. Almost alone of his generation, Sickert truly understood that the theatre of war was not confined to the trenches. |
| 31 |
National Theatre Live: A Streetcar Named Desire (2014) #1269
FILM
Main
Directed by Benedict Andrews, Nick Wickham. With Gillian Anderson, Clare Burt, Lachele Carl, Branwell Donaghey. As Blanche's fragile world crumbles, she turns to her sister Stella for solace - but her downward spiral brings her face to face with the brutal, unforgiving Stanley Kowalski. |
| 32 |
National Theatre Live: Coriolanus (2014) #1275
FILM
Main
Directed by Tim Van Someren. With Tom Hiddleston, Mark Gatiss, Hadley Fraser, Jacqueline Boatswain. Caius Martius Coriolanus is a war hero, banished from his home, seeking to come back. |
| 33 |
Twelfth Night (2013) #519
FILM
Main
Directed by Tim Carroll, Tim Carroll. With Samuel Barnett, Liam Brennan, Paul Chahidi, John Paul Connolly, Stephen Fry. Shakespeare. Globe Theatre Production. |
| 34 |
Africa: Sahara (2013) #734
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. Sahara - Africa Episode 5 of 6. Attenborough. Northern Africa is home to the greatest desert on Earth, the Sahara. On the fringes, huge zebras battle over dwindling resources and naked mole rats avoid the heat by living a bizarre underground existence. Within the desert, where the sand dunes 'sing', camels seek out water with the help of their herders and tiny swallows navigate across thousands of square miles to find a solitary oasis. This is a story of an apocalypse and how, when nature is overrun, some are forced to flee, some endure, but a few seize the opportunity to establish a new order. |
| 35 |
Frost on Sketch Shows (2013) #742
DOCUMENTARY
Main
Many of Britain's biggest comedy stars cut their teeth on sketch shows and many of our most-loved comedy series began as sketches. Sir David Frost traces the development of the sketch show over the last 50 years - from the variety theatre to peak-time television, from Arthur Haynes to Morecambe and Wise and The Two Ronnies, from Monty Python to Not the Nine o'Clock News and Catherine Tate. He is joined by TV comedy greats including Ronnie Corbett, Stephen Fry and Michael Palin as they look back on the highs and lows of their own sketch show experiences. And together with comedy veterans Michael Grade and Richard Curtis, they ask if, in an age dominated by stand-up and sitcoms, the sketch show can continue to flourish and survive. |
| 36 |
Imagine: McCullin (2013) #760
DOCUMENTARY
Main
95 mins. BBC. imagine... presents McCullin, a powerful documentary portrait of legendary British war photographer and photojournalist Don McCullin. Told through a series of searingly honest and often graphic interviews, McCullin recounts a life lived in the theatre of war - from his first assignment with the violent teenage gangs on his home turf of Finsbury Park, to capturing international conflicts of the past 50 years. The film lays bare McCullin's disgust for the destruction of human life, juxtaposed with the adrenaline rush of a life spent under enemy fire. |
| 37 |
Imagine: Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy (2013) #770
DOCUMENTARY
Main
90mins. BBC. For generations of Jewish songwriters, the bright lights of Broadway have been a catalyst for transformation. New York's musical theatres offered a chance for those who had fled persecution and oppression to make it big in America. On Broadway, the idea of outsiders beating the odds could be dramatised in a uniquely American art form, with melodies derived from Jewish prayers inspiring catchy new songs that tens of millions around the world would come to embrace. imagine... looks at the unique role Jews have played in creating the modern American musical, from Porgy and Bess to West Side Story and Cabaret. Featuring performances by Broadway's most creative talents, plus a medley of amazing archive footage and interviews, the film explores the work of some of America's pre-eminent musical maestros - including Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Kurt Weill, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Jule Styne. |
| 38 |
National Theatre Live: This House (2013) #1273
FILM
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Directed by Jeremy Herrin. With Reece Dinsdale, Charles Edwards, Phil Daniels, Julian Wadham. This House is a play by James Graham, based on true events that occurred in the 1970s British Parliament. |
| 39 |
Sightseers (2012) #381
FILM
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Directed by Ben Wheatley. With Alice Lowe, Kenneth Hadley, Steve Oram, Eileen Davies. Chris wants to show girlfriend Tina his world, but events soon conspire against the couple and their dream caravan holiday takes a very wrong turn. |
| 40 |
The Story of Musicals (2012) #732
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1 hour episodes. BBC. Series which tells how the British musical became a driving force behind musical theatre around the world - a tale of shows, daring, rivalries, talent and fortunes set in just a single square mile |