Tom Sharpe
Tom Sharpe is one of Britain’s finest comic novelists. Focusing on Grantchester Grind, this programme examines the blend of free-wheeling fantasy and acute comment that characterise his bawdy disaster epics, which build from small scrapes into avalanches of hilarious rudery. As well as discussing his writing and the subject of literature, Sharpe talks about his life and his experience of living in South Africa in the 1950s. Extracts from the television dramatisations of Porterhouse Blue and Blott on the Landscape are included.
John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner is one of the world’s most highly-regarded conductors of operatic and orchestral music. He first made his name in the field of Early Music, then, in 1990, he founded the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, a period instrument orchestra dedicated to playing classical and Romantic music. This programme focuses on Gardiner’s work with this orchestra, which brings a new and exciting perspective to some of the best-loved symphonic music.
Jonathan Miller
Jonathan Miller is one of the world’s most sought-after directors of plays and operas. In this programme, he talks illuminatingly about his ideas on bringing classic works to life for today’s audiences, focusing on Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Mozart’s Così fan tutte. This film of Miller rehearsing this opera at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden gives a fascinating insight into his way of working and shows how he puts his ideas into action.
Flags of the Fante Coast
This programme travels to Ghana to explore the art and culture of the Fante people, in particular their vibrant and allegorical sacred flags. These colourful appliqued and
embroidered banners were originally used as the regalia for small military companies which existed in towns and villages along the Fante coast for hundreds of years. The companies still flourish as fraternal groups and flags continue to be made and used in the traditional way.
Eric Newby
With some dozen books to his name, all shot through with his characteristic humour, powers of observation and capacity to end up way off the beaten track, Eric Newby is now one of the best-selling travel writers in the world. In this profile, he travels to South Australia to revisit places he went to on his first intrepid journey in 1938, and then continues into the Australian bush in search of some of the few truly remote places remaining in the world.
Tim Rice
From his first meeting with a young composer called Andrew Lloyd Webber, to his Oscar-winning songs for Disney’s Aladdin and The Lion King, this programme traces Tim Rice’s development as a lyricist. It centres on a relaxed and informative television interview with the man who is never at a loss for words. Rice and Lloyd Webber talk about the development of shows they created together, such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita.
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker has been described as the owner of the sexiest voice in music. He has released more records than any other blues artist and, along with B. B. King, he is probably the best known. This programme visits Hooker at his San Francisco home, sits in on a recording session and follows him to a local nightclub. It also travels to Clarksdale, Mississippi, in search of his roots and to Detroit, where Hooker first made his name in 1948 with the million-selling record Boogie Chillen.
John Banville
Noted for his dense, thickly-textured prose and his very precise use of often rare and difficult language, the distinguished Irish writer is, by his own definition, “something between a novelist and a poet”. Recording an in-depth discussion between Banville and author Melvyn Bragg, this programme affords an opportunity to understand the motivation and method of this immensely gifted, profoundly literate contemporary writer. It includes visualised readings from Banville’s works, among them The Book of Evidence and Ghosts.
Jeff Koons
‘Vulgar’, ‘banal’ and ‘pornographic’, are all words that have been used to describe the work of American sculptor Jeff Koons. This master of self-publicity is best known for his kitsch novelties, and photographs and sculptures of himself in Kama Sutra positions with his ex-wife, La Cicciolina. Not since Duchamp and Warhol has any artist so dramatically polarised critical opinion and provoked such controversy. In this revealing profile, Koons is seen working on a major creation – a fourteen-metre-high puppy built entirely of fresh flowers.