Arena

Premiere. Ronald Eyre reviews what's going on in the theatre, Kenneth Tynan talks to Laurence Olivier about Lilian Baylis and The Old Vic, and a film...

George Melly looks at how they sold the 70's and a report on the opening of the Space Studios.

An interview with Howard Barker, author of 'Stripwell', and an extract from same; commentary by Kenneth Tynan; and an investigation of 'Birds of Parad...

Cartoonist Mel Caiman on the New Yorker magazine and its artists, Richard Hamilton at the Serpentine Gallery, and a new documentary exhibition from Ja...

Peter Hall talks about the history and new South Band location of the National Theater, where he is artistic director.

Features Observer critic William Feaver on Painting the End of the World, Bill Brandt's selection of landscape photography at the Victoria and Albert...

Extract from a contemporary play and Kenneth Tynan opines.

Shirley Conran is the guest columnist; fashion photographer Barry Lategan is filmed working; and Victorian painter Edward Burne-Jones' London exhibiti...

Deborah Norton reviews British stage events, a play extract, and Kenneth Tynan opines about the theatre.

Guest columnist Terry Measham; a look into the work of painter and poet Charles Tomlinson.

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova rehearse for a BBC New Year Gala Performance; Kenneth Tynan draws a portrait of Albert Finney.

Filmmaker Roger Graef and journalist Simon Jenkins discuss the destruction of historical buildings, in light of a recent SAVE campaign report and the...

Deborah Norton returns with reports, interviews and extracts from what is liveliest and best in the British theatrical scene.

Jonathan Miller introduces this week's look at what is most stimulating and enjoyable on the theatrical scene.

A look at American photographer Paul Strand and recent trends in British photography.

Arena goes to Scarborough for the British premiere of a new Alan Ayckbourn play "Just Between Ourselves".

Arena looks at aspects of community art and the work of painter Keith Grant, artist-in-residence at the New Charing Cross Hospital.

Claire Bloom and Kenneth Tynan discuss extracts from Samuel Beckett's 'Happy Days', George Bernard Shaw's 'Too True to be Good', and Tennessee William...

Arena talks with Robert Janz and Dante Leonelli about incorporating time into sculpture.

Arena brings extracts from Paris' contemporary theatre season, including Frank Wedekind's 'Lulu' and Marguerite Duras' 'Days in the Tree', and an inte...

Arena presents the work of British and American video artists.

Barbara Jefford, Laurence Olivier, Joan Plowright, Kenneth Tynan Billie Whitelaw and many of the people behind the scenes say goodbye to the Old Vic b...

Liverpool poet and painter Adrian Henry visits 'The Face of Merseyside'; Boyd and Evans use photographs as the basis of their explorations of everyday...

Alumni of the Royal Court celebrate its 20th anniversary.

Barrie Penrose investigates a multi-national art empire and the artists and methods that created it.

Features Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Galina Visnevskaya in the Scottish Opera's production of Macbeth, The Kantor Theatre Company from Poland, and Fenella...

Features the La Mama Theatre Company from New York; Bunraku, traditional Japanese Puppet Theatre; a recital by Frederica Von Stade; and Judith Blegen...

Writer Germaine Greer and her god-daughter Ruby take a look at a child's Edinburgh Festival and some of the fringe activities, including Gruppo Teatro...

A look at the opening of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.

Gavin Miller interviews the director Robert Altman on "M*A*S*H", "Nashville", "Buffalo Bill and the Indians" and more.

David Gould, the expert who discovered Tom Keating's Samuel Palmer imitations, shows the process of identifying and analyzing suspected pictures.

Gavin Millar talks with Frank Westmore, whose family has dominated the make-up departments of American cinema for decades.

Peter Shaffer, writer of 'Equus', talks about his plays, his life and the theatre with an excerpt from the 1976 stage production of 'Equus'.

Gavin Millar interviews director Eric Rohmer about 'Die Marquise von O', 'Claire's Knee' and 'Love in the Afternoon'.

British illustrators Mick Brownfield and Allan Manham are documented working on their current projects; Artist Chris Orr probes the dreadful truth beh...

Don Siegel, director of 'The Shootist', 'Charley Varrick', 'Coogan's Bluff', 'Dirty Harry' and many other violent thrillers talks about the problems o...

A look at Theatre National Populaire, one of France's leading theaters, and Patrice Chéreau's 'La Dispute' by Marivaux and Roger Planchon's 'Tartuffe'...

In light of the low proportion of British films in the 20th London Film Festival, Gavin Millar looks at what's wrong with the British film industry an...

Sculpture for the Blind - a special Tate Gallery exhibition; Linda Benedict-Jones, photographer; James Boswell - a revival of his war pictures.

Arena speaks with Spanish directors at the Madrid premiere of 'The Long Vacation of 36'.

20th anniversary tribute to Bertolt Brecht at Newcastle's University Theatre with scenes from 'The Good Woman of Setzuan' and prose, poetry and music.

A look at the Disney exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum; an interview with 'The Ritz' director Dick Lester and actress Rita Moreno; an excerpt...

Gavin Millar talks to Mel Brooks just before the London release of 'Silent Movie'.

An introduction to the magical world of wood-sculptor Sam Smith, plus a look at one of this month's major exhibitions.

Gavin Miller talks to director Martin Ritt, writer Walter Bernstein, and actors Woody Allen and Zero Mostel about 'The Front'

An interview with Stewart Parker about his new musical 'Spokesong' with excerpt; a profile of 81 year old actor Richard Goolden with scenes from 'Toad...

A fortnightly look at the big screen at home and abroad. News, views and interviews presented by Gavin Millar.

Ralph Steadman illustrates a children's anti-war story, caricatures at his local pub, and speaks about his drawing techniques and his work, including...

Gavin Miller discusses 'Network' with director Sidney Lumet and Robert Kee; Alberto Cavalcanti talks about his film career on the occasion of his 80th...

Peter Stein, director of Die Schaubuhne theatre co-operative, comes to London with his Shakespeare Project. Includes extracts from 'Summerfolk' and 'S...

Gavin Millar talks to New Yorker critic Pauline Kael about Costa-Gavras' 'Z' and 'Section Speciale', along with her passion for the movies and how she...

Arena investigates holograms and their potential in the arts; artist Kit Williams' vivid folklore paintings.

On the occasion of the release of the third film version of 'A Star is Born', James Mason talks about the curious business of stardom and how it has c...

Arena visits three theatres - the Mercury Theater in Colchester, the Humberside Theatre in Hull, and the Duke's Playhouse in Lancaster - to find out w...

A look at Ealing Studios, including excerpts of many of their popular films.

Portrait painter Philip Sutton; Helmut Weissenborn, a German WWI soldier who illustrated with wood engravings the war diary of Edward Thomas, an Engli...

In a special edition from Rome, Gavin Millar interviews Bernardo Bertolucci, director of 'Last Tango in Paris' and '1900', and Gore Vidal on Hollywood...

Prospect Theatre Company reopens the Old Vic. Includes rehearsal footage from 'St Joan', 'Hamlet', 'Antony and Cleopatra', and 'War Music', a new musi...

Gavin Millar talks to director Bernardo Berolucci in Rome about '1900', his new five and a half hour film, as well as his earlier work.

The artist Ian Breakwall gave up painting for the art of a daily diary; Jim Dine explains why he returned from pop art to drawing the human figure.

Arena looks at erotic films, including 'Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus', 'Hardcore', and 'Come Play With Me'.

An interview with Sophia Loren on the occasion of the opening of 'The Cassandra Crossing'.

Mr Universe, the Crazy Horse Girls de Paris, Yum Yum Shaw, superstars with police escorts, topless bathing beauties-the Cannes Film Festival still som...

In the last ten years an astonishing number of new writers have emerged. Plays by Barrie Keeffe, John McGrath, David Hare, Howard Barker, Howard Brent...

Features the 1977 Edinburgh International Festival with a new production of Carmen, the experimental shows, Film Festival, Television Festival, and ar...

with Gavin Millar returns for a new season after a visit to Hollywood, which despite rumours of slump and panic is still the unquestioned capital of t...

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen talk about the filming of 'Annie Hall' and their long friendship.

In the 17th century Troilus and Cressida was censored and in the 18th century Tate gave King Lear a happy ending. The programme debates the line betwe...

Star Wars - the biggest and fastest money-maker in the history of the movies - has opened in Britain at last. What on earth - or in heaven - has cause...

George Melly explores his lifelong relationship with surrealism in all its forms and prominent personalities; Henry Moore discusses Leonardo da Vinci'...

The Force is with us? Star Wars - the biggest and fastest money-maker in the history of the movies - has opened in Britain at last. What on earth - o...

But please, this is a farce! ' The story of The Cherry Orchard CHEKHOV: '... It hasn't turned out a drama but as a comedy, in places even a farce.'...

A British film The Duellists starring Keith Carradine , Harvey Keitel and Albert Finney won the Special Jury Award at Cannes last year and it opened i...

A tribute to the British filmmaker Alan Clarke (1935-1990).

Last Saturday in the Francois Truffaut Season now running on BBC2, "L'Enfant Sauvage", one of his masterpieces, was shown. Set in 18th-century France...

'She is a creature of fire and light, her voice a golden gate opening on lapis lazuli hinges, her body a supple reed rippling in the breeze of her lov...

Hooray for Hollywood? Gavin Millar talks to: Christopher Isherwood has been a Hollywood immigrant for 40 years and loved every minute of bis screenwr...

A new British film has its Royal Premiere tomorrow. It is an English period film and vividly demonstrates the high production values, quality and tale...

This year's London Film Festival contained five entries from India. It's a reminder that we hardly see any of the output of the biggest film industry...

Arena takes you on a guided tour of the smallest museum in the world - its 'curator', Swiss artist Herbert Distel, has transformed a small chest-of-dr...

Featuring two of the greatest photographers of the 20th century Jacques Henri Lartigue began taking photographs at the age of seven in 1902. His celeb...

Gavin Millar presents another edition in his regular series about the cinema today.

Gavin Millar talks to Robert Alt man about his new film A Wedding; plus Karel Reisz 's Dog Soldiers and other turn-of-the-year news. (Postponed from 2...

wo years ago Marion Elliott , a 20-year-old from Brixton, gave up working in Woolworths and became punk singer Poly Styrene. Having created her own p...

Aloe: a genus of plant indigenous to South Africa, noted for its ability to survive under the most adverse conditions. Athol Fugard is the author of...

Assault on Precinct 13 and Dark Star were two of the ' sleepers ' of the last two years - small-budget films from the USA that struck a chord right ro...

Fibreglass carcasses, a flaming typewriter, and a troop of girl guides - each has been a -key ingredient in a work of art by Leopoldo Maler. Deliberat...

The sell-out success of this year's Royal Shakespeare season at Stratford is the musical play, Piaf. Jane Lapotaire, television's Marie Curie, has won...

John Barry (designer Star Wars and Superman) is now directing Saturn 3. Ridley Scott (The Duellists) is shooting The Alien. Gavin Millar reports on t...

Other Writers Will Tell You Different.... Lifers in prison cages, comedians in Hollywood, adolescents in the East End and female androids on the edge...

Isabelle Huppert is 23 - ' a stunning actress ', says Claude Chabrol ; 'Best Actress ' at Cannes in 1978 for Violette Noziere , the new Chabrol thrill...

The television premiere of GEOFF DUNBAR'S brilliant animation film. Based on ALFRED JARRY's notorious surrealist hero, Pere Ubu , it chronicles the ri...

Q. What do the following have in common? Frank Sinatra, Sid Vicious, Dorothy Squires, Barry John, Paul Anka, Lord George-Brown, Elvis Presley, Prof W...

Twenty-three years ago Don Siegel made his famous horrorpic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Now there is a new Invasion, even more chilling than the o...

Arena presents The Agony and the Ecstasy of Edna Everage In this, the first-ever exclusive Arts Documentary about a living legend, our cameras probe...

At the height of the American depression in the summer of 1936, t writer JAMES AGEE and photographer WALKER EVANS travelled south to Alabama. There th...

with Gavin Millar. Everybody knows about Kung Fu, Run Run Shaw and Bruce Lee. They probably know less about the young film-makers who are trying to g...

Rock band Sham 69 have a large and loyal following of working-class kids, who call themselves 'The Sham Army'. They have a reputation for causing trou...

The King and I For David Oxtoby, Elvis is king. He's been painting rock 'n' roll stars since the 50s, much to the bemusement of the art establishment...

Arena presents a film about the strange art of ventriloquism with Tattersall and his amazing life-size doll.

A film about the popular reggae band Steel Pulse, Whose highly successful debut album ' Handsworth Revolution' launched them last summer on the road t...

The Paintings of Kit Williams Inspired by the landscape, the wildlife and by his village neighbours, artist Kit Williams conjures up in his paintings...

One in six people in Britain will spend some time in a mental hospital. For 50 years, painting or drawing have provided an important key to the proble...

John Hoyland is reckoned by many both here and abroad to be this country's finest abstract painter. A key figure for younger artists and critics, he h...

Arena presents a profile of Richard Rogers, one of the most original and controversial talents in architecture today. It was Rogers, together with hi...

Athol Fugard is the author of such celebrated plays as The Blood-knot, The Island and Sizwe Bansi is Dead. He is known throughout the world for his op...

Formerly a professional screamer in horror films, a belly-dancer in the Middle East, Lene Lovich has now emerged as one of the most original performer...

Arena presents the extraordinary story of Tim Page, war photographer and Vietnam legend-a tale first told in MICHAEL HERR'S celebrated book about Viet...

Arena presents a hilarious and touching portrait of the great Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, filmed on location in Brooklyn, New York, and feat...

This week Arena features two highly-individual women artists. Peggy Taub has always wanted to sculpt like the classic Greeks. But whenever she leans...

Irish folk music is one of the oldest unbroken cultural traditions in Europe. As the Sense of Ireland festival of arts comes to London, Arena presents...

The growth of black consciousness through the 1970s has produced an explosion of original new theatre in black South Africa. At a secret performance i...

Adrian Thrills investigates a new and exhilarating musical blend which is taking the country by storm. 2-tone is a unique mix of music, fusing togeth...

A profile of Liverpool playwright Alan Bleasdale With two new productions packing them in, in the North of England, ALAN BLEASDALE continues to build...

As prizewinning writer/performer Victoria Wood opens in her latest play, Good Fun, Arena looks at her talent to amuse through her witty and engaging s...

"Failure can be fun' is the motto of self-confessed failures David McGillivray and Stephen Pile (above-if RADIO TIMES had only been able to take a pic...

The story of an unusual collaboration between rock musician Brian Eno and artist illustrator Russell Mills. The 65 works in Russell Mills' new series...

featuring "Where Did You Get That Hat?" The outrageous hats of designer David Shilling, modelled by his mother Gertrude - doyenne of Ascot Day... "O...

One after another mighty politicians have fallen victim to the savage caricatures of Peter Fluck and Roger Law , better known as Luck and Flaw. Among...

In Their Own Image Two women photographers turn the camera on themselves ... Time Release For over a year Linda Benedict -Jones photographed herself...

Stanley Kubrick's long-awaited film The Shining opens in London this week and throughout the country from tomorrow. To mark the event Arena offers a u...

Not so long ago they were playing in London pubs. This week - 16 platinum discs, 21 gold and a triumphant world tour later, Dire Straits return to the...

It was in the Chelsea Hotel, New York, that Bob Dylan wrote 'Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands', Andy Warhol filmed Chelsea Girls and Dylan Thomas drank h...

Arena eavesdrops on the writing of a new adventure for James Hazell , popular cockney private eye. He is the creation of Terry Venables , manager of Q...

' Uncle Sidney' is the kindly old soul in charge of an institute for the disabled: he tucks them up at night and keeps them supplied with back numbers...

This week two genuinely, original English artists introduce you to their work: Sam Smith , whose impeccably carved and printed wooden models evoke an...

Arena investigates the grass-roots of rock today with John Peel and John Walters ' When the punk thing started, the whole process of making records,...

Arena marks a major retrospective exhibition at London's Hayward Gallery with a film about the great American realist painter EDWARD HOPPER. His subje...

For the past ten years Peter Brook and his unique company of actors have travelled the world with a series of extraordinary theatrical ventures. The l...

Tonight, from a converted cowshed in the wilds of Scotland, Arena presents The Smallest Theatre in Great Britain. Immortalised in the Guinness Book o...

There were these five guys round the table: the Lightweight Boxing Champion of California; an expert on Pre-Columbian art; an honorary lieutenant in t...

' Marching the streets of Jerusalem in 67, carrying a sub-machine-gun, I was in an absurd way acting out the role reserved* for the Arabs in my childh...

"I don't go out much these days, and when I do I find life infinitely dreary compared to my books..." William Gerhardie, who died at the age of 82 in...

' It suddenly dawned on me that I was absolutely broke, completely and utterly. I didn't have a penny in the world ... this was where fame was cruel.'...

Lupino Lane , the man who made ' The Lambeth Walk ' famous, was a comic who once rivalled Chaplin and Keaton. With the advent of the talkies, his smal...

This week Arena patrols the skies above Metropolis in search of the legend that is SUPERMAN ... Meet Kirk Alyn , the first celluloid-Superman and Chr...

Clair thought of himself as a screenwriter as well as a director. He put his stamp on French screen comedy in the 20s and 30s with such classics as Th...

As a child, trapped in a crazy Jewish household in a poor Chicago tenement, the American artist Robert Natkin had to find a way to change his life. Hi...

Britain's musical reputation is second to none, and depends ultimately on an exceptional tradition of youth orchestras. The educational ideals which...

Derek Jacobi, Helen Mirren, Martin Jarvis, playwrights Peter Terson and Barrie Keefe - all products of the National Youth theatre, a unique organisati...

For 25 years the Polish film director ADRZEJ WAJDA has been making some of the most exciting and boldly critical films in Eastern Europe. He was filme...

From Brooklyn to Beverly Hills - the life and times of a great comic film director. Tonight on BBC2 Mel Brooks , creator of Blazing Saddles, Young Fra...

She is two-and-a-half feet tall and nearly 500 years old. She hangs in The Louvre behind plate-glass - an unsigned, undated portrait of a smiling woma...

When JOINT STOCK began their latest project four months ago, they had a writer but no script, actors but no roles. Borderline, by award-winning young...

Only a short while ago Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were forgotten names in cinema history. Now, some of the greatest film-makers in the worl...

This week, a total contrast in visual style-the art of RADIO TIMES and the jaundiced eye of Private Eye. The Art of Radio Times: Since 1923, the 'off...

Arena profiles one of the most dazzling literary talents of recent years - Saiman Rushdie , a storyteller extraordinary and winner of this year's Book...

Reggae has its roots in Jamaica, and has found a home in Britain. But there are over 60 countries in the Caribbean, each with its own distinctive cult...

A ski run in Italy, a supermarket manager in Luton, a sandwich bar in London EC2, Arena opens the bonnet of the Ford Cortina, Britain's most popular,...

John Updike 's new book, Rabbit is Rich, is the third in the Rabbit series from the author of Rabbit, Run, Couples and The Coup. At 50, Updike is at...

Osip Mandelstam, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, died in a prison camp somewhere in Siberia in the 1930s: no one knows precisely how or...

In a month of continuing controversy about the aims and methods of the ' documentary', Arena presents a classic film by one of the pioneers of the mov...

' I love its homeliness. It conjures up the best in traditional British pleasure, like the great British breakfast. It's an honour to be asked ' (PAUL...

Presents two classic films from the early days of documentary. Featured in last month's True to Life? edition, they're shown complete for the first ti...

Arena presents an exclusive film profile in two parts of one of the great legends of the cinema. With unprecedented frankness and detail. Orson Welles...

'I should never have stayed in movies. But it's a mistake I can't regret because it's like saying I shouldn't have stayed married to that woman and I...

Mike Leigh is a dramatist in a tradition of his own, a fiercely original talent whose work and working methods have always provoked curiosity and cont...

In April 1967 at the peak of his career as a dramatist, Joe Orton was murdered by his lover, Kenneth Halliwell... Arena presents a documentary portrai...

One of the most spectacular and unlikely theatre events of last year took place a long way from the West End of London in the small Dorset town of Bri...

It is commonly thought that poets are university-trained intellectuals who occasionally produce slim volumes about their personal feelings. This is no...

Classics like ' Summertime blues , 'C'mon everybody' and Three steps to heaven' made Eddie Cochran one of the all-time greats of rock 'n' roll. But f...

For nearly 50 years everybody who was anybody in the British theatre passed before the lens of Angus McBean - Gielgud, Olivier, Thorndike, Coward ......

by Samuel Beckett Starring Billie Whitelaw With Leonard Fenton Arena presents the first programme in a Samuel Beckett Season providing a unique opp...

Continues the Samuel Beckett season. Starring Jack MacGowran A rare opportunity to see an early television premiere. Recorded in 1966, tonight's pre...

Arena continues the Samuel Beckett Season with a unique record of his new play Rockaby which has just opened at the National Theatre. Premiered in Ame...

Continues the Samuel Beckett Season. In one of the most extraordinary pieces of modern drama Billie Whitelaw, Beckett's foremost interpreter, perform...

Continues the Samuel Beckett Season with a premiere. A play without words. Quad has a musical structure. It is a kind of canon or catch-a mysterious...

Concludes the Samuel Beckett Season. One of the best-known Beckett monologues starring its creator, the late Patrick Magee. Krapp, an old man, is al...

Last year a £13-million painting travelled in top secret from America to Spain. Next day it was headline news that Picasso's masterpiece ' Guernica '...

Today, in post-revolutionary Cuba, under the benign patronage of Fidel Castro, classical ballet thrives. This unlikely success story is mainly due to...

Tonight Arena takes you on a tour of contemporary British heads, from the exotic to the mundane, from hot wax to Brylcreem. Blue rinse, quiff, mohican...

Pierre Boulez, leading composer of the post-war generation, later a powerful and innovative conductor, is now the head of an extraordinary experimenta...

George Melly presents films of the greatest names of swing jazz - but with a difference. Some were made for visual juke boxes which flourished in the...

Widely regarded as one of the greatest literary figures of the century, William Burroughs has perfected a unique and terrifying vision of the world. H...

Tonight Arena presents one of the most ambitious dance projects ever seen on television. The Catherine Wheel combines the talents of Twyla Tharp , on...

Writing about his experiences as a war prisoner in Dresden in the novel Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut achieved a unique blend of dead-pan humour and...

Tonight Arena takes an extraordinary journey through the video age. Video pirates, video trials, video weddings, video graves.... Fifty years ago it...

The great Luis Bunuel died last month. Born in 1900, he was undisputably one of the outstanding creative figures of the 20th century. Tonight Gavin Mi...

Dear boy, you are out of your mind, this woman will annihilate you, she will grind you to a fine powder and blow you away ... Director Joseph Mankiew...

Anthony Powell's 12-volume epic, A Dance to the Music of Time, is widely regarded as the most formidable single work of British fiction since the war....

Starring Claire Bloom, Sam Wanamaker from the novel by Philip Roth with Mark Linn Baker, Paulette Smit 'You're not so nice and polite in your ficti...

Following the success of Jazz Juke-Box I, George Melly presents another selection of jazz shorts and ' soundies ' - the delightful films made for visu...

Roman Vishniac is a Russian Jew born in St Petersburg in 1897. His striking images of life in the Jewish ghettos - taken with a concealed camera just...

Arena shows three film classics from the early years of British documentary, which began 50 years ago.

The GPO Film Unit-50 years old this year-went where no Hollywood film studio would dare to go in 1933. Down the mines, across the Alps, through the st...

An Arena special Last September at the Royal Albert Hall Don and Phil Everly performed together for the first time in ten years. The concert was the...

George Orwell is one of the greatest writers England has produced. Tonight and for the next four nights Arena presents a unique full-scale portrait of...

Tonight's episode of the five-part Arena biography tells the story of Orwell's marriage to Eileen O'Shaughnessy , his growing political awareness and...

Orwell, like many of his generation, enlisted to fight on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Filmed in Barcelona and on the Huesca front, w...

For a brief period after the Spanish Civil War, Orwell was a revolutionary socialist, violently opposed to the coming war with Germany. Tonight's film...

The last in this series of Arena films about the life and work of George Orwell begins with the tragic death of his wife Eileen in March 1945. Overcom...

Tonight's Arena Special tells the extraordinary story of two of the legendary figures of American 'gospel' -the music whose emotional impact and burni...

ANTHONY CARO: 'I wanted to play games with our sense of space ... you experience this room with the eyes and the body too.' HOWARD HODGKIN: 'I tried...

Dario Fo is unique in world theatre. Playwright, actor, clown, teacher and philosopher, he is an international celebrity with two West-End smash hits...

Tonight Arena takes a journey down one of the best known streets in the world. Sunset Boulevard stretches 27 miles from Los Angeles' Chinatown all the...

On 29 June 1982 a man called John Blake appeared mysteriously bidding in the major auction houses of London and New York. He was in reality the Sunday...

David Inshaw belongs to a great tradition of English Romantic Painting - the tradition of Stanley Spencer, Samuel Palmer and the Pre-Raphelites. His m...

Tonight, in the anniversary year of Edward Elgar 's death, Arena plays host to KEN RUSSELL 'S classic music documentary. Made in 1962 for the 100th ed...

For the first time on British television, Arena presents a concert by this great legend of rock n roll. Jerry Lee Lewis doesn't sound like anybody els...

Breyten Breytenbach writes about being an Afrikaner. His poetry was taught in schools and his paintings greatly admired. But in 1975 Breytenbach, livi...

Tonight Arena profiles the French film director Louis Malle. Malle is a director who has never let himself be tied down to one style of film making. T...

From the vantage point of his Paris flat, the Czech writer Milan Kundera still obsessively contemplates Prague, the city he was forced to leave nine y...

American-born writer and director Joseph Losey died last month in London. He made his home in England in 1952 when he was hounded out of America after...

Tonight Arena presents a musical entertainment set in the streets of New York City, an epic rap which will tap the roots of Hip Hop.... the true story...

Taught to sing from their earliest years, the brothers were raised in a unique cross-current of musical influences, from Appalachian harmony duos to b...

Tonight Arena presents the first film portrait of the greatest of all the jazz singers. Billie Holiday's tragic story, from her traumatic childhood in...

The legendary Eubie Blake 's career as a ragtime pianist and composer began in 1883. Sadly last year, five days after his 100th birthday he died. This...

To mark his 75th birthday, Arena presents this exclusive film portrait of the great British painter, Francis Bacon. Despite his world-wide fame, Baco...

This week: a portrait of one of the most individual architectural talents America has produced. Bruce Goff discovered his vocation as a child in Tulsa...

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti is the most popular and controversial musician ever to come out of Africa. Born in Nigeria 47 years ago, he has dominated the Afri...

Arena presents the British premiere of Ingmar Bergman 's new film After the Rehearsal. Written and directed by Bergman last year soon after completing...

In the 25th anniversary year of the Revolution, Arena traces the Afro-Spanish roots of Cuba's rich musical history. If, for you, the rumba still means...

Every November musicians from all over Latin America come to take part in the international music festival at Varadero in Cuba. For five days bands fr...

For many Luciano Pavarotti is the world's greatest tenor - certainly his place is assured among the legends of Grand Opera. In New York on 16 August,...

Howard Jacobson the eldest son of MAX JACOBSON the Manchester conjuror, made a late but successful start in the world of fiction. At the age of 41 he...

The artists Julian Schnabel , Markus Lupertz , Sandro Chia , Francesco Clemente and Georg Baselitz command some of the highest prices on today's boom...

Arena this week presents a profile of the man many would consider the greatest living French film director. It introduces a BBC2 season of five of the...

Karen Blixen's voyage to Africa in 1913 was a journey away from the 20th century. Kenya was then a semi-feudal society, a land of Masai and Kikuyu, te...

Tonight Arena and Newsnight join forces to mount a major studio debate between the embattled factions of the arts world. 'The Glory of the Garden' was...

From Chaucer's pilgrims to inter-continental juggernauts, generations of travellers have taken this historical route from Dover to the old City of Lon...

A Musical for the 80s starring Tim Curry, Sting, Alexei Sayle, Gary Glitter and introducing Jason Carter To lig. verb. To gain something for nothing...

Tony Harrison is the son of a baker, and his poetry relishes, and mourns for the class he comes from. His subjects are sex, love, politics, class warf...

One of the greatest masters of 20th-century painting died last month at the age of 97. This filmed tribute contains the last interview given by Chagal...

'America gave to the world two original art forms: one was jazz, the other was full character animation' (Chuck Jones) In 1908, the comic strip artis...

Hugh Masekela 's career as a musician has been dominated by his determination to take the music of black South Africans to the rest of the world. His...

Robert Wilson is one of the most revered and controversial talents in contemporary theatre. He first came to prominence in the New York avant garde of...

Tonight Arena presents a cornucopia of the blues from the raw sounds of the Mississippi Delta to the jazz and rock 'n' roll that blues gave birth to....

Blues Night presents rare footage of the harmonica blues player Sonny Boy Williamson, who gave B.B. King his big break in 1948. ‘He was on the radio d...

John Walters talks to B.B. King - aided by his guitar Lucille - about his extraordinary life, from a childhood picking cotton in Mississippi to worldw...

Harley Cokliss’ classic blues documentary includes performances by Muddy Waters, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy, and shows how the tough urban music of Ch...

The great Chicago broadcaster and journalist Studs Terkel and pianist Blind John Davis meet in a downtown bar to discuss and play the blues. This inte...

This medley of the blues features Fred McDowell, Thomas 'Georgia Tom' Dorsey, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Huddie Ledbetter - better known as 'Lea...

Hard blues meets film noir as Big Bill Broonzy sings and plays in a Belgian nightclub back in the 1950s.

An Arena Special. Lubbock is a small town lost in the great plains of west Texas. Her most famous son, Buddy Holly , changed the face of popular musi...

Tonight Arena presents a unique interview with one of the great figures of 20th-century literature, Jean Genet. His first novel, Our Lady of the Flow...

What do Charles Dickens , Count Leo Tolstoy , Barry Manilow and James Anderton , Chief Constable of Manchester, have in common? A love of the accordio...

Francesco Rosi is one of the foremost figures in post-war Italian cinema. His films have an epic sweep covering Mafia crime, political corruption and...

Yukio Mishima was one of the outstanding writers of his generation. Nominated three times for the Nobel Prize, he was the author of 40 novels and 18 p...

The list of artists who have performed at Harlem's Apollo Theater reads like a Who's Who of black American entertainment. No black performer, from Sam...

Harlem's Apollo Theater has been the ultimate testing ground for every black American performer from Duke Ellington to Michael Jackson. Tonight Aren...

Casa Verdi is a rambling mansion in the city of Milan, inhabited by an extraordinary and captivating group of people. Once it belonged to the composer...

Arena presents the first television showing of a rare and extraordinary classic of the silent cinema, with an original music score by Dimitri Shostako...

That most erotic and mysterious of dances, the tango, came to life in the suburbs and backstreets of Buenos Aires. This Arena Special traces its colou...

From its origins in ninth-century China to its modern incarnation as a Christmas pantomime, Cinderella has endured as one of the best-loved fairytales...

Behind the quiet, gentlemanly exterior of Norman Lewis lies the acute Perception of one of Britain's foremost travel writers and investigative journal...

The home of the White House, the Pentagon and the President is also the home of the most exciting soul scene of the 1980s. The raw power of the go-go...

Novelist, poet, essayist and the first woman to be elected to the Academie Francaise, Marguerite Youreenar lives and writes on her island refuge off t...

The American film actress Louise Brooks, who died last summer, was one of the most celebrated beauties in the history of the cinema. Her performance a...

In 1950 the Grand Prix of the prestigious Venice Film Festival went quite unexpectedly to a Japanese film. It was called Rashomon and the director was...

Critical acclaim for a group of recent art school graduates has put Scottish art, and Glasgow in particular, firmly on the international map. Two peo...

Don McCullin 's powerful pictures of the horrors of war and deprivation have made him one of the world's most celebrated photographers. Now, after mo...

Linton Kwesi Johnson takes a trip home to Jamaica and files a personal report on the long-standing relationship between the Caribbean and the mother c...

Calypso from Trinidad's Mighty Bomber, dancing from Nicaragua, Jamaican Bob Marley's 'Could you be loved', Grenadian poet Abdul Malik, and the origina...

The celebrated West Indian poet Derek Walcott joins Linton Kwesi Johnson and Guyanese prodigy Fred D'Aguiar to debate the range and impact of Caribbea...

Out of the archives, a skanking delight from Kingston's Sombrero Club, 1964. Featuring Prince Buster, Toots and the Maytals and Jimmy Cliff.

Darcus Howe interviews leading Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes and Trinidadian historian John La Rose on the exotic and often bloody story of the Cari...

Despite the dangers and deprivations of war, the people of Bluefields, Nicaragua, still find time to do the Lambeth Walk and dance Maypole. Bluefields...

Fuentes, La Rose and Howe are joined in the studio by this year's Calypso King David Rudder who tells the true story of the 'Trinidad Trinity' - calyp...

From the BBC treasure chest, Alan Whicker explores the forgotten comers of the Caribbean, where he meets the Pocomaniacs of Jamaica, the Redlegs of Ba...

Filmed on his recent visit to London, Panamanian salsa star and politician Ruben Blades talks to Linton Kwesi Johnson about Latin music today, ranging...

A bedtime treat from 1936: the GPO Film Unit present the Caribbean through the words of W.H. Auden and the music of Benjamin Britten.

A portrait of the man who made reggae known and appreciated all over the western world and who refused to abandon a message of personal and political...

Born in Trinidad in 1901, C.L.R. James came to England in the 1930s and was cricket correspondent for the Manchester Guardian. In this programme the a...

In an old church in Havana, the Urfe brothers play Danzones, the first popular Cuban music to emerge from the blend of African and European traditions...

According to reggae greats Bob Marley and Burning Spear, football and Rastafari are one and the same thing. In the last week of the World Cup Rasta an...

Cuban jazz is rarely heard over here. Tonight Arena redresses the balance with a performance by virtuoso trumpeter, Arturo Sandoval. Much admired by D...

'I dreamt there were 72 angels, 72 trumpets, 72 vases of flowers - all things were 72. And then I saw directly the face of God himself. I was summoned...

Speaking from Henry Moore's own studio in Perry Green, Hertfordshire, John Read shares his personal memories of the artist he filmed six times over 28...

'The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.' So says Salvador Dali one of the most famous painters in the world. Dali now live...

Following last night's story of Salvador Dali, Arena continues it's Spanish trilogy with this highly-acclaimed profile of the great film-maker Luis Bu...

Federico Garcia Lorca, perhaps the best-known and loved Spanish poet and dramatist of this century, was brutally executed at the age of 38 during the...

When the Khmer Rouge invaded Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, they forced the entire population into the countryside where they were starved, beaten...

In this week's Arena Gerald Scarfe takes a long, hard look at himself. In his paintings and drawings he mercilessly pillories the powerful and the fam...

Fifty years ago Basil Wright and Harry Watts' classic documentary "Night Mail" celebrated the role of the railways as the nation's distributor of good...

Arena presents Bob Dylan, concentrating on his classic songs and backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in his first concert on British television...

Tonight Arena presents the moving story of the first lady of country music. At the age of 44 she's had 35 number one records, three Grammy awards, 50...

Night and Day is a 24-hour journey through the streets of London spent in the company of two different and unusual writers. The day is introduced by...

'You can open your veins on television more easily than anywhere. It's the last stronghold for the individualist-writer.' Over the last 20 years Denni...

Tonight Arena tells the story of one of the most extraordinary photographers of the 20th century. Martin Chambi , an Indian born into a peasant famil...

After Robert Crumb , comics could never be the same again. He came to fame in the mid 60s with characters such as Fritz the Cat and the archetypal gur...

David Lynch , director of some of the strangest films in today's cinema, including Eraserhead and Elephant Man, guides us through the film works of a...

Abdullah Ibrahim formerly Dollar Brand, pianist, composer, arranger, was bom in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1934. When Duke Ellington heard him in 196...

In 1986 Andrei Tarkovsky 's remarkable career in the cinema received the accolade of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It sealed his reputat...

Jo Spence 's photography defies definition - her work appears in community spaces as well as grand galleries. It deals with social problems, sexuality...

What do the following have in common? Maria von Trapp, whose story became "The Sound of Music"; Bob Guccione, the editor of Penthouse; Martin Scorsese...

(Lino Brocka 's Philippines) Lino Brocka is the most influential film director in the Philippines, and a leading figure in the civil rights movement....

What is a chat show - a forum for stimulating conversation and the exchange of ideas or just an economical way of filling the airwaves? Gus Macdonald...

Twenty-one years after his death Evelyn Waugh looms larger than ever over the English literary scene. In the course of three programmes Arena uses the...

The second of three programmes looks at Evelyn Waugh 's most productive period as a novelist, journalist, travel-writer and man of action. His exotic...

Last of three programmes. When Waugh died on Easter Sunday 21 years ago his friend Graham Greene felt 'as if one's commanding officer were dead'. Dur...

Joseph Beuys was one of the most prominent and controversial German artists of the past 30 years. Sculptor, performance artist, teacher and maverick p...

by Leslie Megahey A story of intrigue and romance in 16th-century Venice. Starring Paul McGann, Simon Callow, Michael Gough, Diana Quick When Caria...

The Arena season opens with a profile of Diego Rivera , considered to be the most famous painter in the history of Latin America, and also the most no...

For 200 years British writers have achieved great success with their accounts of life on the Indian subcontinent. Less well-known are the writings of...

Art Spiegelman is one of America's leading comic-strip artists. Earlier this year he created a stir with Maus, a novel in strip form. Maus tells of a...

he legend of Woody Guthrie - the rambling guitar player who discovered America from the roof of a freight train - was an inspiration to two decades of...

Tonight Arena presents, on the occasion of their 50th anniversaries, a tribute to those great British institutions, the Beano and the Dandy. In their...

Broadway is one of the most famous streets in the world. Legendary for bright lights, musical comedy, and the dreams of stardom, the myths and cliches...

The first of two programmes featuring the work of a major figure in contemporary literature and journalism. In three decades, reporting from Latin Ame...

Arena presents JONATHAN MILLER 'S acclaimed production for the Royal Court Theatre of RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI's play. Adapted for the stage and televisi...

The Queen of Salsa, Celia Cruz has been the most adored and dynamic singer in Latin America for more than four decades. Since she left Cuba at the tim...

Today is Shrove Tuesday, in French, Mardi Gras , and tonight is the night before Lent. While the British celebrate with pancakes, the Latin world expl...

Continued from BBC2. From the Toulouse Cafe in the heart of downtown New Orleans where the day's t festivities climax with the cream of New Orleans r...

The novelist and poet Jack Kerouac died in 1969, a chronic alcoholic, at the age of 47. He was already something of a legend, not simply for his style...

The flamenco of southern Spain is more than music and much more than an exhilarating dance for the tourists. It's the soul of a culture, and its roots...

The flamenco of southern Spain is more than music. It's the soul of a culture and its roots go back to the 15th century, when gypsies travelled to Spa...

This month the National Portrait Gallery opens its doors to the controversial photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. As the epitome of New York style he is...

The English Thoroughbred In the late 17th century the fastest, most elegant racing machine known to man was developed by the English aristocracy. The...

Each season Arena invites a distinguished figure in the arts to direct a film. This year's guest director is John Byrne, painter and author of Tutti F...

Randy Travis is the hottest new singer on the country music scene today. In June of this year he played his first British concert at the Royal Albert...

Arena's new season begins with a special anniversary edition and a chance to see again some classic moments from the past ten years. Dame Edna admits...

Dirty Harry and the other characters in the Eastwood repertory have dominated the box office for over 25 years. He has made over 40 films and directed...

Born in Sri Lanka in 1943, educated in Dulwich and now living in Canada, Michael Ondaatje has criss-crossed the world in a search for what he calls th...

From Dundalk to Dungannon, Ballycastle to Belfast, Field Day, Ireland's foremost touring theatre company, journeys past checkpoints and critics with B...

When Nat King Cole died in 1965, the world lost its greatest ballad singer. Last year, 22 years after his death, When I Fall in Love reached number 4...

Award-winning director Jana Bokova presents a typically idiosyncratic portrait of Europe's most fashionable city. An equally eccentric and fascinating...

With more visitors than the whole of Greece and more holiday beds than Portugal, Blackpool is Europe's most successful holiday resort. Growing to prom...

Breasts/bosoms/bust/boobs/bristols/knockers... we live in a breast-obsessed society and 'tits' are by no means the preserve of the tabloids; the symbo...

Arena presents two films by award-winning director Georg Troller , made for West German television's leading arts programme Personenbeschreibung. Sir...

eyond the familiar world of Wall Street and Madison Avenue, there is another New York, whose roots lie in West and Central Africa. Successive waves of...

The absurdity of life has been Eugene lonesco's theme and preoccupation since he wrote the first of his 33 plays and, alongside Beckett and Genet, cre...

Actor and director, John Cassavetes, who died earlier this month was one of the few truly independent movie-makers working out of Hollywood. In this t...

Ten years ago, Vernon Oxford turned his back on the bright lights of Nashville and a life as a popular country singer, and gave himself to the Lord. T...

Elton John's jukebox sold at Sotheby's for £16,000. It has come a long way since it left the Wurlitzer factory in 1942. It is the same with most jukeb...

Arena continues its centenary celebration of the jukebox with a special edition of one of the original pop music programmes. Juke Box Jury is 30 year...

Born in Georgia in 1901, Berthold Lubetkin is one of the most outstanding and influential architects in Britain. His life has spanned the Russian Revo...

Ever since its noisy birth out of the primitive fuzzboxes of the 1960s, heavy metal music has been maligned and misunderstood by public and critics al...

For some 25 years the author Graham Greene found himself the victim of a bizarre masquerade. A man calling himself Graham Greene opened hotels in Jama...

'Look at the clocks - it doesn't matter if they're wrong. Somewhere in the world the time is right.' A typical line from Slim Gaillard. He became a j...

In 1938 jazz legend and international star Slim Gaillard went to Hollywood to appear in Hellzapoppin: and then war broke out. Gaillard became one of A...

This week Slim Gaillard cooks dinner for his old friend Dizzy Gillespie. They discuss the English language and their contributions to it — 'bebop' and...

Some people see the pig as representing dirt, sloth and obesity; others view it with affection. In this film we see them all: farmyard pigs, performin...

A film version of Heathcote Williams 's epic poem, an impassioned hymn of praise to one of nature's most magnificent creatures, and a lament at man's...

The animals in wildlife films have always been vying for attention with that eccentric breed - the animal presenter. This medley of classic clips of w...

In the 1920s a middle-aged spinster went to buy a yard of ribbon and came out with a baby gorilla. He was the first gorilla to survive captivity. His...

What does Sam get up to when he's left on his own all day? This verite portrait looks at an ordinary day in the mysterious life of a very ordinary dog...

Novelist Julian Bames, philosopher Nicholas Humphrey and French historian Dr Michel Rousseau help to uncover one of the most bizarre chapters in crimi...

Speciesism, vivisection, vegetarianism, farming, sport, zoos, circuses and pets will be some of the topics discussed in a live debate chaired by Donal...

The phenomenal career of the Rolling Stones has taken them from being the bad boys of rock 'n' roll to becoming proteges of the establishment. They no...

So says Gregory Chaitin, one of the world's three leading mathematicians, addressing the camera from the deep recesses of the IBM building in Yorktown...

Oblomov is a slob. Even Gorbachev is said to have denounced him from the podium: 'We must stamp out the Oblomovs from our society.' The lazy aristocra...

This is the story of 'the Killer', the ultimate wild man of rock, from his phenomenal success at the age of 20 with Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On to th...

The great Italian film director, who died in 1977, was the founder of 'neo-realism'. Following the international success of his films dealing with th...

Traditional Jewish humour flourished in adversity. Religious persecution and life in the ghetto nurtured its own kind of bitter comedy which, in 20th...

Salif Keita - the golden voice of Mali - is one of the first African world superstars. He can trace his lineage directly back more than 700 years to...

Fred Zinnemann, best known for the classic western High Noon, has had a career in movies spanning 65 years. In an exclusive interview with Arena, Zinn...

Actor and director Spike Lee joins actress Debbie Allen on a journey in search of the perfect vocal performance. They travel through Brooklyn as diffe...

Now in her 80s, Peggy Ramsay is the most powerful and unconventional play agent in Britain. She started her agency in the mid-50s in a converted broth...

The term 'English rose' conjures up a variety of images which fall somewhere between the delicate pink roses of high summer and the fair complexion of...

They call themselves the 'Children'. By day they are cycle-messengers, assistants in department stores, prostitutes or unemployed; by night they are m...

On 4 July 1967, Private Raymond Griffiths was killed in Vietnam. He was 19 years old - the average age of US combat troops in the war. He was one of m...

Cuba's legendary capital, once a playground for the rich, has an extraordinary faded beauty with its grand colonial palaces decaying into crumbling te...

Niccolo Machiavelli 's infamous The Prince is a short book about power - how to get it and how to hang on to it. But if 'he' were changed to 'she' thr...

Krzysztof Kieslowski is the foremost director to have emerged in Poland since Andrzej Wadja. His two most recent features, A Short Film about Killing...

Paris's love affair with the black world stretches from the Cubists' discovery of African sculpture at the beginning of the century to the present day...

Tonight's programme looks at the Soviet cinema since perestroika and examines the work of some of its most important film directors who are working ag...

When Lenin told the newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain that its survival depended on having a daily paper, he could not have forseen that a...

Considered by many to be our greatest living stand-up comedian, the incomparable Francis Alick Howerd holds a special place in the hearts of the Briti...

This Arena Special celebrates the centenary of Dame Agatha Christie's birth with the first film biography of the world's most widely read author. Tota...

A new musical, Township Fever, is about to open on Broadway. Written by Mbongeni Ngema , the co-author of Woza Albert , it is vibrant and funny, but...

Tonight Arena brings you an evening of short films and a debate devoted to that most universal of subjects, food. Spitting Image has created your host...

Today's hypermarket is an Aladdin's cave compared to the grocery store of 30 years ago. Food Night looks at the ever-increasing gulf between what appe...

A salute to four great thinkers. If Rossini had not preferred food to music there would have been no Tornados Rossini. If Nellie Melba had not becom...

Food has had a part to play in religion, politics, science and war, and throughout history has underlined the social divide between prince and peasant...

Some lessons in manners from the silver screen - Five Easy Pieces, Tampopo, Oliver Twist and more.

This film explores the application of kosher dietary laws which have helped to preserve the separate identity of the Jewish people.

Louisiana State Penitentiary recently released a list of the last meals ordered by prisoners about to be executed. One man, whose crime was shooting a...

With the help of potato experts from all over the world Food Night pays homage to this nutritious, delicious, maligned and sometimes despised vegetabl...

A chance to sample some favourites from the kitchens of such legends as Fanny Cradock, Zena Skinner and Delia Smith. Director Sarah Mortimer

Mealworms served in a cherry tomato, grasshoppers rolled in bacon - these are just a few of the nourishing dishes served up in this film which explore...

Left to your own devices, what do you eat, when do you eat it and how much of it do you eat?

As Christmas approaches, time to contemplate self-denial.

As the evening's climax, Arena assembles a forum of distinguished politicians, economists, nutritionists, moralists and senders and receivers of aid t...

A spectacular musical celebration of life, capturing evolution in all its glorious diversity, and the rhythms of nature in all its beauty, delight, an...

Nelson Mandela, since his release, has become one of the most famous people in the world. Everyone has heard of the leader, but Mandela the man remain...

Derek Jarman is a uniquely British outsider: a painter, film-maker and a self-appointed enfant terrible with a paradoxical affection for tradition. He...

Kiefer is Germany's most controversial and reclusive artist. He is also its most successful. The millions his work commands in the auction houses and...

On 3 February 1967, Joe Meek, composer of Telstar and pioneer independent producer, shot his landlady and then himself. With Humphrey Lyttelton, Screa...

Rocky is the name of American artist Robert Rauschenberg's pet turtle. It is also the name of an epic and visionary project which in the last eight ye...

December 1990: a rusty ship drifts silently in the North Sea. As the Government and its Broadcasting Bill close in for the kill, Radio Caroline could...

This profile of Keith Waterhouse follows him through his hectic diary. As a columnist for the Daily Mail he reports from the Conservative conference i...

It has been said that the English hoard words like misers and the Irish spend them like sailors. Tonight's Arena presents three great Irish masters of...

For more than two decades, Van Morrison has been fusing different musical influences, creating a style of his own. In this programme he duets with Bob...

This one-man show based on the life of Oscar Wilde was the jewel in the crown for Irish actor Michael MacLiammoir 's career. The programme was first...

Roci Rocky is the name of American artist Robert Rauschenberg 's pet turtle. It is also the name of an epic and visionary project which in the last ei...

When Kenneth Anger first published his classic expose of Hollywood's best-kept secrets and scandals, it was immediately banned. The underground film-m...

Top US crime writer Elmore Leonard 's street-wise characters range from violent hoodlums in and around Detroit to low-life hustlers on Florida's Gold...

In the last of the current series of Arena, musical performance artist Laurie Anderson presents an examination of mankind's obsession with its own ima...

A show as big as the Lone Star State this is an epic voyage through the wildest state in the union - from the honkytonks and dancehalls to the hill co...

Brutalised at home and school, John Healy drinks a promising boxing career into the "grass arena" - the savage community of vagrant alcoholics. He dri...

The first of a special three-part presentation in which American film director Billy Wilder discusses his career with German film maker Volker Schlond...

Second of three in-depth conversations with the film director and writer Billy Wilder. He recalls his memories of the great Hollywood stars - "Mae Wes...

Last of a special three-part presentation in which American director Billy Wilder discusses his career. He remembers working with Marilyn Monroe on S...

When pop artist Peter Blake confessed in a magazine article that his fantasy was to be the mysterious masked wrestler Kendo Nagasaki, who never speaks...

A portrait of the controversial American film director, Oliver Stone, whose work often arouses the fiercest passions in both supporters and critics. I...

On 14 February 1989 Salman Rushdie was sentenced to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Tonight, on the third anniversary of the fatwa, a gathering of in...

In 1983, David Hampton was arrested for pretending to be the son of actor Sidney Poitier and conning his way into the homes of some of New York's most...

Rockstar Dean Read was the biggest rock star the communist world had ever seen. Virtually unknown in his native America, the "Red Sinatra" was the fir...

This film asks how the culture of a country survives amid gunfire. Ivan Rabuzin , the 71-year-old Croatian artist, says his paintings stand as accusat...

"I'll either be famous or infamous," declared the controversial German painter who died in 1969. His subjects range from tranquil landscapes to frenzi...

Refused entry to America from China in 1958 because of the embargo on "communist goods", the giant panda Chi-Chi came to London Zoo - a constant objec...

Tales of the City first appeared in the 70s as a daily column in the San Francisco Chronicle. Armistead Maupin's stories about life in San Francisco...

A self-portrait of photographer and film maker Robert Frank. Often called the "eyes of the Beats", Frank's work spans 45 years from his influential b...

Javier Mariscal is an artist who cannot be categorised - a designer who thinks a Camel cigarette packet has as much value as a Picasso. Phillipe Star...

Three films which take a journey through the rich musical heritage of Argentina. The story begins just south of Buenos Aires in the Pampas. This is t...

Three films which take a journey through the rich musical heritage of Argentina. In the vast regions from the plains of the Pampas to the provinces o...

The Calchaquies valleys in the Andes and the Humahuaca canyon form the most underdeveloped and remote region in Argentina, with traditions going back...

Few activities in modern life can rival sport for creating excitement, passion and commitment. Arena takes a look at how the tensions and glories of s...

In her first television profile, Linda McCartney talks about her life in photography and, with husband Paul, about the difficulties of being married t...

Arena's 1993 season opens with this three-part exploration of the life and work of the enigmatic writer. Greene's obsessions with the seedy world of l...

Disloyalty, secrecy and spying fascinated Greene both in his work and in his private life. Tonight's film charts the hidden years of his life when his...

Last of the biographical films, with extracts read by Sir Alec Guinness. A World of My Own (1961-91) Passionately promoting the link between Catholic...

In the 1980s American artist J S G Boggs stunned the art world by holding an exhibition of banknotes, drawn by himself. In one go, he broke moral, art...

The story of the unlikely and unpublicised relationship between a 60s American rock band and some of Britain's little-known orchestral composers. Once...

Elder statesman of jazz and a co-founder of the style that became bebop in the 40s, John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie will be remembered by many as the tru...

One of the world's leading figures in the battle against Aids is not a doctor, scientist or politician, but a writer - Larry Kramer - who says: "Aids...

Palestinian writer, academic and exile, Edward W Said takes a journey into the worlds of history, literature, ideas and imagination to explain how he...

For three decades the Soviet Union's obsession with space stirred the soul of the nation like a secular religion - from the first space star Yuri Gag...

An interview with the poet who last December won the Nobel prize for literature, and whose current novel-length poem has caused him to be dubbed the "...

One of China's most successful film directors, Zhang Yimou , talks about his life, his work, and his views on China. The stunning photography and quin...

To mark his 60th birthday, and the publication of his new book Operation Shylock, Philip Roth breaks his long silence and talks to Arena about his lif...

To the innocent reader, the characters in a work of fiction are the author's inventions. To those in the know, it is often more complicated. Arena inv...

Chronicling New York low and high life, Weegee's photographs have often shocked the world. His wife, Wilma Wilcox , talks about the man behind the myt...

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp entered a white porcelain object in a New York exhibition. it was a urinal. Arena unearths the origins of this extraordinary s...

An Arena special which documents the making of Reitz's second great German epic, The Second Heimat, which begins on BBC2 next Saturday. When Jewish wr...

The arts series returns with four films tracing the origins of classic rock songs. The inspiration behind Buddy Holly's famous song - Peggy Sue Gerro...

Brenda Fassie is South Africa's answer to Madonna. A black singer for black people, she is streetwise, outrageous and aiming to be an international st...

The second documentary in this Arena series telling the true stories behind classic rock songs is devoted to Elvis Presley's first million-selling rel...

All the characters named in the song were real people who frequented Andy Warhol's studio in the late 60s. Trans-sexual Holly, and Jackie and Candy, w...

Last programme in the Arena series tracing the origins of classic rock songs. This musical journey travels the famous highway that has inspired succe...

Your television and radio are cast as personalities (played by Peter Cook and Josie Lawrence) in this night of themed programmes showing how the two m...

Ian McKellen ruminates on the distinct eras of radio broadcasting, characterised as Shakespeare's seven ages of man, with the aid of Professor Asa Bri...

Alistair Cooke, whose weekly epistle has been broadcast on radio since 1946, explains why it is the best medium for him.

The story of early radio's method of broadcasting live football, referring to a numbered grid - published in the Radio Times - on which listeners foll...

Family Sunday meals conjure up for many Family Favourites, Round the Home and The Billy Cotton Band Show.

On just one estate in east London there are five pirate stations, battling to stay on air.

Does TV steal radio's best comedy ideas? Included in the debate are Frank Muir, Denis Norden, Armando Iannucci and the voice of Spike Milligan.

Harold Listings, a frustrated radio technician, takes revenge.

Nasa scientists are using giant radio antennae to pick up communications from ET.

Dr Carl Dolmetsch finds out why the pips changed pitch.

The tragic story of the lone yachtsman and his radio.

Live on TV for the first time, Fisher, German Bight, Dogger.

Concluding BBC2's Arena Radio Night, a film drama starring James Whitmore, Nancy Davis (later Reagan). Joe and Mary Smith are shaken one night when t...

An exploration of the phenomenal popularity of L Frank Baum 's famous children's story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written in 1900. About 20 film vers...

In the 1980s Vladimir Pozner , once dubbed "Ivan the Telegenic", became the second most celebrated communist in the west. Carrying Gorbachev's message...

The new stars of ragga and gangster rap - Shabba Ranks, Ice Cube, Public Enemy, Buju Banton - have become as notorious as they are successful. They co...

For centuries, bare-knuckle boxing has been going on behind closed doors. Nigel Finch's unusual film investigates this illegal activity by following o...

During the 1970s and 1980s Derekjarman kept a Super-8 film diary, chronicling the cultural high life and low life of London. The footage ranges from W...

In 1960 an American film called Primary changed the notion of what a documentary could be, using techniques never before seen on TV. It was made by Ro...

Seventy million Kalashnikov (or AK-47) guns are scattered across the world. It was the Russians' Cold War weapon and is still the first choice of terr...

On 1 April 1984 former Motown star Marvin Gaye provoked his father once too often, and was shot dead in his bedroom. It was the tragic finale to an ex...

The idea that power exists in the remains of heroes and the things they leave behind is the focus of an Arena trilogy broadcast this weekend and intro...

"Move Albert Einstein ," declares Japanese professor Kenji Sugimoto at the start of a bizarre journey in search of the great one's missing brain. Sugi...

A film drama set against civil war in Peru. When Ortiz, a professional graverobber, stumbles across the huge golden disc of the ancient sun god Atahua...

In 1978 Charlie Chaplin 's coffin was stolen from his grave in Vevey, Switzerland, and a large ransom was demanded of his widow Oona. This fictional f...

The author of the stories behind Blade Runner and Total Recall grew up in California at a time when an agricultural idyll was fast being replaced by m...

Robben Island is South Africa's Alcatraz. For three decades Nelson Mandela , Walter Sisulu and hundreds of other political prisoners were held in its...

Using herself as the model, American artist Cindy Sherman has produced hundreds of photographs exploring the use of female stereotypes. Most recently...

Brazil's major slave-trading port for nearly three centuries, Bahia has a black population of over 80 per cent which maintains the legacy of African t...

Sandra Bernhard 's outrageous one-woman show deals with many normally taboo subjects and controversy runs through her personal life: she was once Mado...

This Arena special profiles sculptor Louise Bourgeois, who has suddenly become fashionable at the age of 84, and has been chosen to represent America...

Arena returns with a three-part special, presenting a film portrait of one of the world's great comic actors, incorporating home movies, film clips an...

The second of a three-part film portrait of one of the world's great comic actors.

The last of a three-part film portrait of one of the world's great comic actors. Tonight's film begins in 1964, with Sellers at the peak of his succe...

In August 1975, the face of British rock music was fundamentally changed: the Sex Pistols were formed. A host of colourful characters, including the D...

The passion fans had for his music was matched only by the passion Elvis Presley had for his food. This documentary records his inexhaustible appetite...

What is a nation? From Corsica to Kashmir, from Quebec to Bosnia, violent separatist movements are fighting to form their own nation states. This edit...

At 70 years of age, singer Tony Bennett has been dubbed the King of Cool by the MTV-watching generation. Arena reveals the man behind the silky voice...

The legendary Sid Caesar was one of America's favourite TV stars in the fifties. His writing team, which include Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Neil Simo...

On 22 October 1995, for the first time, all the world's leaders gathered together in the United Nations in New York to have their photograph taken for...

A portrait of the Italian film-maker Michelangelo Antonioni , who has directed such films as L'Awentura, which follows immediately, LaNotte and Zabris...

Sports writer Hugh Mcllvanney presents the first of a trilogy of programmes for the Easter weekend about three great football managers; Matt Busby. Jo...

Hugh Mcllvanney presents the second in a trilogy of programmes about three great football managers; Matt Busby , Jock Stein and Bill Shankly. Tonight...

Concluding the three-part series presented by sports writer Hugh Mcllvanney about three great football managers; Matt Busby, Jock Stein and Bill Shank...

Tonight's programme considers musa sapientum, the fruit of the wise. The Velvet Underground's John Cale tells the story behind Andy Warhol's famous LP...

In 1962, before John F Kennedy signed the embargo banning the importation of cigars into America from Cuba, the President ordered 1,200 Havana cigars,...

The first of a three-part profile of the writer, composer and actor covers Coward's meteoric rise from suburban south London to the world's highest-pa...

The second of three programmes celebrating the life and career of Noel Coward focuses on the journey through the Far East which inspired his most famo...

Concluding the three-part Easter special with a look at the last 30 years of Noel Coward's life. His post-war eclipse as a dramatist gave way to a new...

Arena explores the rise of the legendary crooner Frank Sinatra from his early family background to overwhelming showbusiness success. Interviews with...

The first of a two-part documentary telling the story of Brian Epstein. Gay when homosexuality was illegal, a gambler, shopkeeper and failed actor, he...

Concluding the two-part profile of the pop manager who brought global success to the Beatles. By the mid-sixties, the group's fame meant Epstein had...

Newsreel footage from 1962, when Fidel Castro's arrangement with then-Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to install nuclear-weapon sites triggered off t...

Cuba's baseball prowess has been long estabished. Fidel Castro himself was once scouted by a US team, and in 1992 Cuba surpassed even the Americans to...

Cuba's place in world politics, from mid-sixties to mid-eighties.

Homer swaps jobs with Fidel Castro, who goes to work at the nuclear power plant in Springfield.

The effects of the demise of the dominant political ethos in the east.

Since his death in 1967, the face of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara has stared down from posters and banners around the world, the most reproduced im...

Cuba's relations with the United States in recent times.

In Salman Rushdie 's new novel The Ground beneath Her Feet. singer Vina Aspara is caught up in an earthquake on Valentine's Day 1989, and never seen a...

The Iron Curtain ran north to south through Europe and divided the world for 50 years. American writer and broadcaster Reggie Nadelson joins former So...

The legendary 18th-century lover has been immortalised in books, films and on television, but are these fictionalised accounts historically accurate?...

In 1957, Jayne Mansfield was riding high as the most photographed woman in the world. Yet, ten years later, she was reduced to stripping in seedy nigh...

This second blonde-bombshell profile focuses on Britain's home-grown prototype, Diana Dors. The Rada-trained actress emerged as a sex symbol in the fi...

Perhaps best remembered as the shapely blonde who waded into the Trevi Fountain in La Dolce Vita, fifties sex symbol Anita Ekberg became a Hollywood i...

Actor Dennis Hopper plays the eccentric host to this guide to the world of commercial creativity. The programme analyses advertising's true place in m...

More and more young Muslim women today are wearing the veil, saying that it frees rather than oppresses them. This one-off Arena explores how a simple...

An edition in the occasional arts documentary strand. Wisconsin Death Trip. Inspired by a book of the same name, film-maker James Marsh tells the haun...