This major eight-part series reveals the rich and diverse drama of African history and is presented by the distinguished historian and scholar Basil Davidson. Covering a vast time scale – from the origins of some of the world’s greatest civilisations, to colonisation, the rise of nationalism and the emergence of modern Africa – the story is unfolded on location all over the continent with the help of archive film, carefully illustrated eye-witness accounts, interviews with statesmen and leaders, dramatic reconstructions and specially-shot film of festivals, ceremonies and life there today.
John le Carré
World-famous for his spy thrillers, Le Carré avoids publicity. In this rare television interview, he talks revealingly about his books and how they have been influenced by his childhood experiences and by his work for British intelligence. He focuses on his novel, The Little Drummer Girl. Le Carré reads from his books and the programme includes extracts from the film, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and the television series, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Patricia Highsmith
Thriller writer Patricia Highsmith, America’s first lady of crime, died in 1995. She was best-known for her creation Tom Ripley, amoral crook and killer. This film combines interviews with Highsmith alongside dramatisations from Ripley Underground.
Cowboy Art
Cowboy Art is a uniquely American genre that has its origins in the work of the two great nineteenth century illustrators of the Wild West, Charles Russell and Frederick Remington. In recent years, it has attracted fresh interest and a whole new generation of Cowboy artists has emerged. Shot on location in Texas and New Mexico, this programme traces the history of representations of the Wild West in art, exploring what it is that makes cowboys and indians so enduringly popular.
Alan Davie
Scots-born Davie’s work has gained him international recognition. The world of his paintings is a mystic one of signs and symbols, one that disturbs the primitive subconscious but yet is wholly modern. This insight into his art shows Davie immersed in his work at his homes in England and St. Lucia.
Which side are you on?
Film-maker Ken Loach has gained an international reputation for making films concerned with social injustice. He made this film in 1984/85 at the time of a miners’ strike – the longest ever national strike in Britain. It is a record of the miners’ bitter struggle to save their jobs, incorporating the poems, songs and art they created to express their solidarity in the face of hardship.
Ivo Pogorelich
Piano virtuoso Ivo Pogorelich stepped into the limelight when he was dropped from the finals of the 1980 Warsaw Chopin Competition amid a controversy about his unsuitable dress and unconventional interpretation. Pogorelich has remained in demand on the concert platform and fuelled his reputation as an enfant terrible by marrying his teacher, Alice Kezeradse – twenty years his senior. This programme shows them together, working on Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit and talking in interview.
The new Pacific
An eight-part series produced and directed by Michael Macintyre The Pacific Basin contains a third of the world’s population. No other region in the world has so great a diversity of race, religion, culture, social organisation and language. With rapid developments in trade, tourism and telecommunications, the peoples of the Pacific are being brought closer together, and they are experiencing constant challenges to their traditional lifestyles. Their economies are thriving as never before, but can they preserve their own unique identities in the face of such change? This series looks at what is happening in the Pacific and considers what the future holds in store.
George Orwell
Orwell (1903-50) is a giant of twentieth-century English literature, noted for his lucid and penetrating prose and for his passionate concern for the ordinary man. Made with the help of Orwell’s estate and his official biographer, Bernard Crick, this definitive study uses a wealth of archive and interview material to explore his work and evoke the troubled countenance of his world. This film shot in Spain, Paris and throughout Britain locates important events in his life.
Rudolf II
This dramatised portrait of the Bohemian king brings to life the court where he amassed an art collection beyond value and brought together leading writers, artists and humanist scholars of his day, including astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johan Kepler, artist Arcimboldo, and mystics such as Giordano Bruno and John Dee. Rudolf suffered the torments of schizophrenia and was a sick and humiliated man when he died in 1612, but his reign was still a golden age in the cultural history of Prague.