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 about David Hockney's sets for The Rake's Progress…

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 Paradise'.

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

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 Museum, and the best of science fiction illustrati…

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 exhibition.

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 conclusion of the European Architectural Heritage …

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 Williams' 'Sweet Bird of Youth'.

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 interview with Delphine Seyrig.

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 building.

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

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 Fielding in a late-night revue.

Features the La Mama Theatre Company from New York; Bunraku, traditional Japanese Puppet Theatre; a recital by Frederica Von Stade; and Judith Blegen as Susanna in 'The Marriage of Figaro'.

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 Libero from Rome and Quentin Crisp.

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 behind the net curtains of suburbia.

Don Siegel, director of 'The Shootist', 'Charley Varrick', 'Coogan's Bluff', 'Dirty Harry' and many other violent thrillers talks about the problems of the director who is typecast by his success in 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', as well as scene's from Planchon's scenes from h…

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 and distribution system.

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 from Buster Keaton's 'Spite Marriage'; and the res…

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 of Toad Hall' and Tom Stoppard's 'Dirty Linen and…

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 Alice, and impressions of the Patty Hearst trial a…

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

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

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 wields her power.

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 changed.

Arena visits three theatres - the Mercury Theater in Colchester, the Humberside Theatre in Hull, and the Duke's Playhouse in Lancaster - to find out what they are doing, how they are doing it and why …

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 English poet who died in WWI; and Gothic art in Cologne…

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

Prospect Theatre Company reopens the Old Vic. Includes rehearsal footage from 'St Joan', 'Hamlet', 'Antony and Cleopatra', and 'War Music', a new musical adaptation of 'The Iliad' by Christopher Logue…

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 sometimes seems more like a circus than a trade fair.…

In the last ten years an astonishing number of new writers have emerged. Plays by Barrie Keeffe, John McGrath, David Hare, Howard Barker, Howard Brenton, Trevor Griffiths and Stephen Poli akoff have b…

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

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 the cinema world. We talked to one of its ruling pr…

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 between interpretation and vandalism.

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 caused the phenomenal success of this galactic romp-cum…

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

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 - or in heaven - has caused the phenomenal success of…

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.' STANISLAVSKY: ' ... I wept like a woman, I tried t…

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 in London last week. It is a finely photographed pe…

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 it is about the attempts of a man of science to ci…

'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 love. This is not acting at all but living, breathing…

Hooray for Hollywood? Gavin Millar talks to: Christopher Isherwood has been a Hollywood immigrant for 40 years and loved every minute of bis screenwriting career there. 'Thank goodness I had the sens…

A new British film has its Royal Premiere tomorrow. It is an English period film and vividly demonstrates the high production values, quality and talent available in this country but which so rarely g…

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 in the world. Gavin Millar reports from Bombay, i…

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-drawers into a miniature museum. Originally used to …

Featuring two of the greatest photographers of the 20th century Jacques Henri Lartigue began taking photographs at the age of seven in 1902. His celebrated Diary of a Century is a photographic record …

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 20 December)

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 plastic image, she formed a band, X-Ray Spex, and s…

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 such celebrated plays as The Blood Knot, The Islan…

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 round the world. Their young writer/director John Ca…

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. Deliberately provocative, surprise and spectacle are key el…

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 universal critical acclaim for her performance as…

John Barry (designer Star Wars and Superman) is now directing Saturn 3. Ridley Scott (The Duellists) is shooting The Alien. Gavin Millar reports on these two new British SF films.

Other Writers Will Tell You Different.... Lifers in prison cages, comedians in Hollywood, adolescents in the East End and female androids on the edge of the galaxy have all been subjects for Glasgow …

Isabelle Huppert is 23 - ' a stunning actress ', says Claude Chabrol ; 'Best Actress ' at Cannes in 1978 for Violette Noziere , the new Chabrol thriller. We talk to her in Paris. Alberta Hunter is 83…

The television premiere of GEOFF DUNBAR'S brilliant animation film. Based on ALFRED JARRY's notorious surrealist hero, Pere Ubu , it chronicles the rise to power of a kind of punk Macbeth, a lewd and …

Q. What do the following have in common? Frank Sinatra, Sid Vicious, Dorothy Squires, Barry John, Paul Anka, Lord George-Brown, Elvis Presley, Prof Wilfrid Mellers, Shirley Bassey, The Disapointer Si…

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 original; make-up effects by the man who dreamed up…

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 and etch the enigma which is Dame Edna. Meet her i…

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 they lived with a family of poor-white farmers recor…

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 get a few of Hong Kong's more pressing problems on …

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 trouble and Sham concerts have often been disrupted an…

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. Most of the paintings in this film-of Presley, H…

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 to fame. Although their roots are in Jamaica STEEL…

The Paintings of Kit Williams Inspired by the landscape, the wildlife and by his village neighbours, artist Kit Williams conjures up in his paintings a vivid folk-lore of his own. In tonight's Arena…

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 problems of the mentally ill. This Arena film presents …

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 has been both loved and hated to excess. As a major…

Arena presents a profile of Richard Rogers, one of the most original and controversial talents in architecture today. It was Rogers, together with his Italian partner RENZO PIANO , who created the sp…

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 opposition to apartheid and for his determination to…

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 performers in rock music -aided and abetted by a bizarre ap…

Arena presents the extraordinary story of Tim Page, war photographer and Vietnam legend-a tale first told in MICHAEL HERR'S celebrated book about Vietnam, Dispatches. 'People made Page sound crazy an…

Arena presents a hilarious and touching portrait of the great Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, filmed on location in Brooklyn, New York, and featuring friends, relatives and other ' odd-balls '. …

This week Arena features two highly-individual women artists. Peggy Taub has always wanted to sculpt like the classic Greeks. But whenever she leans over the clay bin an animal head appears. An Ameri…

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 some of the finest Irish musicians of today. In t…

The growth of black consciousness through the 1970s has produced an explosion of original new theatre in black South Africa. At a secret performance in the backyard of a Soweto shop, a radical poet re…

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 together reggae, rock, soul, ska, blue beat and punk. Wi…

A profile of Liverpool playwright Alan Bleasdale With two new productions packing them in, in the North of England, ALAN BLEASDALE continues to build on the popular success of his TV plays The Black …

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 songs. And we profile teenage playwright Andrea Du…

"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 picture of him). McGillivray was commissioned to wri…

The story of an unusual collaboration between rock musician Brian Eno and artist illustrator Russell Mills. The 65 works in Russell Mills' new series of paintings provide a remarkable visual counterpo…

featuring "Where Did You Get That Hat?" The outrageous hats of designer David Shilling, modelled by his mother Gertrude - doyenne of Ascot Day... "One Ascot I wore a Christmas tree hat with lots of …

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 their most memorable targets are Henry Kissinger a…

In Their Own Image Two women photographers turn the camera on themselves ... Time Release For over a year Linda Benedict -Jones photographed herself, by using the time release on her Pentax camera. …

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 unique opportunity to eavesdrop on the set of the l…

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 London stage. Tonight's Arena film features the s…

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 himself to death. For 100 years the Chelsea has bee…

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 Queen's Park Rangers, and Gordon Wil liams, author …

' 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 of the Reader's Digest. But, his crippled charges…

This week two genuinely, original English artists introduce you to their work: Sam Smith , whose impeccably carved and printed wooden models evoke an Edwardian childhood - obsessed with the sea, the c…

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, and music as well, was demystified ... Now everybo…

Arena marks a major retrospective exhibition at London's Hayward Gallery with a film about the great American realist painter EDWARD HOPPER. His subject is the face of America - haunting, unforgettabl…

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 last stage of their journey was Australia. Here, i…

Tonight, from a converted cowshed in the wilds of Scotland, Arena presents The Smallest Theatre in Great Britain. Immortalised in the Guinness Book of Records, Barrie and Marianne Hesketh have for th…

There were these five guys round the table: the Lightweight Boxing Champion of California; an expert on Pre-Columbian art; an honorary lieutenant in the Mexican army; an architect admired by Frank Llo…

' 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 childhood nightmares. For the life of me, I don't want t…

"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 1977, was a legend in the world of letters. Born o…

' 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.' (GARY GLITTER) Five years ago Gary Glitter announ…

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 small studio folded and all the negatives of over 40 f…

This week Arena patrols the skies above Metropolis in search of the legend that is SUPERMAN ... Meet Kirk Alyn , the first celluloid-Superman and Christopher Reeve the latest; Dr Fredric Wertham , Su…

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 The Italian Straw Hat , Sous les toits de Paris, Le …

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. His imagination was engulfed by movies from Fred Ast…

Britain's musical reputation is second to none, and depends ultimately on an exceptional tradition of youth orchestras. The educational ideals which underlie this tradition are exemplified in Leicest…

Derek Jacobi, Helen Mirren, Martin Jarvis, playwrights Peter Terson and Barrie Keefe - all products of the National Youth theatre, a unique organisation, which every summer brings 600 Young amateurs t…

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 filmed in Warsaw and Cracow shortly after he had return…

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 Frankenstein , and The Producers, reveals practically…

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 woman, the most idolised and abused woman in the histo…

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 play-wright Hanif Kureishi, finally emerged out of…

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 world are their ardent fans. Arena tells the story of …

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 'official organ' of the BBC has been a leader in desig…

Arena profiles one of the most dazzling literary talents of recent years - Saiman Rushdie , a storyteller extraordinary and winner of this year's Booker prize. Midnight's Children, his fantastic epic …

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 culture. Arena invited Linton Kwesi Johnson , Britain'…

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, most stolen, and most misunderstood car. 'Dagenha…

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 the height of h s powers and reputation. His nove…

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 when. He was imprisoned not for his political act…

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 movement-Humphrey Jennings 's Listen to Britain. Made…

' 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 MCCARTNEY ) For the past 40 years everyone who is…

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 time on British television. Listen to Britain made i…

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 talks about his long and turbulent career - from …

'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 did because I loved her. I'm in love with making m…

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 contention as well as praise. He is a social caricatur…

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 portrait of the author of Loot and Entertaining Mr Sloane…

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 Bridport. The Poor Man's Friend, written by playwrigh…

It is commonly thought that poets are university-trained intellectuals who occasionally produce slim volumes about their personal feelings. This is not so with Michael Smith. Smith, an electrifying pe…

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 for his tragic death, many think he could have beco…

For nearly 50 years everybody who was anybody in the British theatre passed before the lens of Angus McBean - Gielgud, Olivier, Thorndike, Coward ... He was known as the photographer who resolutely fl…

by Samuel Beckett Starring Billie Whitelaw With Leonard Fenton Arena presents the first programme in a Samuel Beckett Season providing a unique opportunity to see famous interpretations of his work…

Continues the Samuel Beckett season. Starring Jack MacGowran A rare opportunity to see an early television premiere. Recorded in 1966, tonight's presentation has only one visible actor, the late Jac…

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 America, it was filmed in rehearsal and performance b…

Continues the Samuel Beckett Season. In one of the most extraordinary pieces of modern drama Billie Whitelaw, Beckett's foremost interpreter, performs this astonishing tour de force. Not I - the mout…

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 square-dance. Four hooded figures move along the s…

Concludes the Samuel Beckett Season. One of the best-known Beckett monologues starring its creator, the late Patrick Magee. Krapp, an old man, is alone with his memories and the reels of tape he has…

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 ' had come home at last, after 40 years in exile. Th…

Today, in post-revolutionary Cuba, under the benign patronage of Fidel Castro, classical ballet thrives. This unlikely success story is mainly due to the legendary figure of Alicia Alonso. After almos…

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, short back and sides, dreadlocks or just shaved …

Pierre Boulez, leading composer of the post-war generation, later a powerful and innovative conductor, is now the head of an extraordinary experimental studio in Paris. This huge underground music lab…

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 early 40s, others are promotional shorts from 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. He is, most notably, a savage satirist and a revolu…

Tonight Arena presents one of the most ambitious dance projects ever seen on television. The Catherine Wheel combines the talents of Twyla Tharp , one of America's most imaginative choreographers, an…

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 shrewd observation of human folly. For Vonnegut, …

Tonight Arena takes an extraordinary journey through the video age. Video pirates, video trials, video weddings, video graves.... Fifty years ago it was just the dream of a science fiction future - n…

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 Millar introduces a ten-week season of his films, be…

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 Mankiewicz recalls the warning he was given by a colleagu…

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. It is also largely entertaining: its cast of 400 …

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 fiction. You're a different person.' Philip Roth's mas…

Following the success of Jazz Juke-Box I, George Melly presents another selection of jazz shorts and ' soundies ' - the delightful films made for visual juke-boxes in the early 40s. He is joined by gr…

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 before the last war - are extraordinary documents …

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 storms of the North Sea ... they really were a dedic…

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 popular music event of the year. With a fine band,…

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 this remarkable man, filmed in the places where h…

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 retraces what was to be the most important journey…

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, where he fought, tonight's film tells the story of …

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 shows his sudden emergence as a patriot in 1940, …

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. Overcome with grief at his bereavement and despair at the…

Tonight's Arena Special tells the extraordinary story of two of the legendary figures of American 'gospel' -the music whose emotional impact and burning conviction lie at the heart of much of today's …

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 to evoke a sense of romantic luxury. Sadly in a pu…

Dario Fo is unique in world theatre. Playwright, actor, clown, teacher and philosopher, he is an international celebrity with two West-End smash hits to his credit - Can Pay? Won't Pay! and Accidental…

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 way to the ocean, a ride made famous by Philip Ma…

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 Times journalist, Peter Watson. The Caravaggio Co…

David Inshaw belongs to a great tradition of English Romantic Painting - the tradition of Stanley Spencer, Samuel Palmer and the Pre-Raphelites. His most famous painting 'The Badminton Game' now hangs…

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 edition of the arts magazine Monitor, it marked the …

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 else - the voice, the piano and the on-stage antics m…

Breyten Breytenbach writes about being an Afrikaner. His poetry was taught in schools and his paintings greatly admired. But in 1975 Breytenbach, living in self-imposed exile in Paris with his Vietnam…

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. The Lovers, with Jeanne Moreau , shocked the conser…

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 years ago when, silenced by the pro-Soviet governme…

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 the Communist witch-hunt. Tonight Dirk Bogarde, …

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 of the most influential popular music culture sin…

Taught to sing from their earliest years, the brothers were raised in a unique cross-current of musical influences, from Appalachian harmony duos to black country blues singers. Their father Ike was a…

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 Baltimore to her premature death in a New York ho…

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 short tribute includes one of the earliest talkie…

To mark his 75th birthday, Arena presents this exclusive film portrait of the great British painter, Francis Bacon. Despite his world-wide fame, Bacon remains one of the most contentious painters wor…

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, Oklahoma, drawing cathedrals and palaces on scra…

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 African musical scene since the early 70s with his uni…

Arena presents the British premiere of Ingmar Bergman 's new film After the Rehearsal. Written and directed by Bergman last year soon after completing Fanny and Alexander, it continues the autobiograp…

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 Come Dancing, then it's time you saw the real thi…

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 from all the 'other' Americas vie with each other in…

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, he Performed before 20,000 People at Madison Squa…

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 published Coming from Behind a scabrous satire of …

The artists Julian Schnabel , Markus Lupertz , Sandro Chia , Francesco Clemente and Georg Baselitz command some of the highest prices on today's booming art market. Their paintings, monumental in sca…

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 masterpieces he made with the poet and scriptwrit…

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, teeming with game. In 1931 she returned to Denmark …

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 the Arts Council's blueprint for a redistribution…

From Chaucer's pilgrims to inter-continental juggernauts, generations of travellers have taken this historical route from Dover to the old City of London. It has become part of London's folklore, livi…

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 by wit and ingenuity. Young Gordon Shilling arriv…

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 warfare, death, all the rituals and performances of ou…

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 Chagall and charts his life and work from the earliest y…

'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 artist Winsor McCay brought to life, on film, his celeb…

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 music is a fusion of sophisticated jazz and the ra…

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 the 60s and 70s with a series of huge stage works…

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. As a crowning delight, the evening is presented fr…

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 doing live performances when I first came to Memphi…

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

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

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 interview was shot for "Omnibus: Studs Terkel's Chicag…

This medley of the blues features Fred McDowell, Thomas 'Georgia Tom' Dorsey, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Huddie Ledbetter - better known as 'Lead Belly' - performs 'Pick a Bale of Cotton', and B…

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 music. Tonight Holly is remembered by the Crickets, T…

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 Flowers, written in prison, moved Jean-Paul Sartre to …

What do Charles Dickens , Count Leo Tolstoy , Barry Manilow and James Anderton , Chief Constable of Manchester, have in common? A love of the accordion. Tonight Arena investigates the appeal of a muc…

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 economic mismanagement in Italy since the liberati…

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 plays. But his legend rests less on his literary ou…

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 Sammy Davis Jr to Charlie Parker, could be considered…

Harlem's Apollo Theater has been the ultimate testing ground for every black American performer from Duke Ellington to Michael Jackson. Tonight Arena continues its celebration of the Apollo's 50th a…

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 Giuseppe Verdi : now it has become a home tor ret…

Arena presents the first television showing of a rare and extraordinary classic of the silent cinema, with an original music score by Dimitri Shostakovich. Directors GRIGORI KOZINTSEV and LEONID TRAU…

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 colourful and bizarre life story, through the work of i…

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. But what has made this fable of domestic abuse s…

Behind the quiet, gentlemanly exterior of Norman Lewis lies the acute Perception of one of Britain's foremost travel writers and investigative journalists. His fascinating accounts of the cultures of …

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 beat has emerged within a stones-throw of America'…