Phoenix emerged in the 1980s as one of the most exciting contemporary groups in Britain, made up of five young black men who were introduced to dance while at school in one of the poorest parts of Leeds. Their extraordinary story is told in documentary film and in a work called The Forming of the Phoenix. The programme’s finale is a performance of Edward Lynch’s Nightlife at the Flamingo, which fuses jazz steps with Phoenix’s own eclectic style.
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.
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood is widely acclaimed as Canada’s most eminent novelist, poet and critic. Her books, among them The Handmaid’s Tale and Cat’s Eye, have earned her enormous respect and numerous awards in the literary world. She is noted for her deep understanding of human behaviour, a beautifully understated style and a tremendously broad scope. Interviewed in and around her home in Toronto, Atwood talks about her writing in a programme which focuses on her book The Robber Bride.
Willy Russell
Willy Russell is driven by his desire to reach a wide audience and to tell a good story. His themes of escape, survival and the search for happiness have universal appeal and he has become hugely popular, with hits such as Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine and the musical Blood Brothers to his credit. Illustrated with extracts from his work, this programme centres on an interview with Russell, in which he describes his journey from failed schoolboy to successful writer.
Lynda La Plante
Lynda La Plante is Britain’s most prolific television screenwriter, creator of hard-hitting series such as Widows, Civvies and Framed, Comics and the British Academy and Emmy Award-winning Prime Suspect. Her dramas are gutsy, uncompromising and meticulously accurate. This programme follows La Plante as she researches those areas which have come to characterise her writing: the criminal underworld, police culture, and London low-life.
Peter O’toole
In 1962, Lawrence of Arabia catapulted Peter O’Toole to international stardom, his outstanding performance in David Lean’s cinema epic earning him an immediate place in film history. On screen and off he has forged a reputation based on talent, hell-raising and an ability to surprise. Occasioned by the publication of the first volume of his memoirs, Loitering with Intent, this documentary with the rarely-interviewed actor gives a fascinating insight into his life.
Alice Walker
The African-American author of the internationally-acclaimed book The Color Purple has been a political activist for the civil rights and women’s movements since the early 1960s. Interviewed at the time of the publication of her controversial novel Possessing the Secret of Joy, Alice Walker discusses its subject – female genital mutilation. With archive film, dramatised extracts from the book and documentary sequences, this programme confronts a disturbing issue.
Billy Connolly
Scottish comedian Billy Connolly has become internationally famous as a comic performer, best-known for his unstinting examinations of bodily functions and his broadsides on political and religious establishments. In this profile, he talks about his life and his work, expressing, with typical frankness, his uncompromising attitudes to his family, to wealth and to his treatment by the press. The programme includes extracts from his twenty-fifth anniversary show in Glasgow.
Richard Price
Richard Price is one of America’s top novelists and script-writers. His gritty and violent, street-wise stories of New York have made him a cult hero, and his film credits include Sea of Love and The Color of Money. This programme focuses on his thriller Clockers, set in crime-ridden Jersey City, and it visits a typical American inner-city area with Price. Interviews with friends and fellow writers, readings by Price from his own works, and film clips combine to paint a fascinating picture of the writer and his material.
Vladimir Ashkenazy on Rachmaninov
In this programme the celebrated pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, a champion of his compatriot Rachmaninov (1873-1943), urges a fuller appreciation of the composer’s music. Filmed at Ivanovka, the country house south of Moscow where Rachmaninov wrote many of his works, the programme makes extensive use of archive footage and stills. It draws on his writings and features several sound recordings of him playing his own compositions. Ashkenazy also plays and conducts music by Rachmaninov.