In this television lecture, style guru Peter York faces an audience of media folk – experts on fashion, journalism, interiors and exteriors – and gives his lively assessment of
British design.
John Mortimer
For many years, John Mortimer ran two careers in parallel: one as a distinguished barrister, and one as a novelist and writer for stage, cinema, radio and television. This profile examines the way in which Mortimer incorporates his experience into his writing. It focuses on his popular television series, Rumpole of the Bailey, his autobiographical play, Voyage Round My Father, and his novel, Paradise Postponed, which was also made into a television series.
Raymond Chandler
Chandler’s lonely, wise-cracking hero, Philip Marlowe, has become the very epitome of the fictional private eye. This film special, shot in California and London, includes interviews with contemporary thriller writers, Chandler’s biographer, Robert Mitchum – who has played Marlowe in two films – and others who knew or worked with him. It evokes his enduring portrait of Los Angeles and tells the story of his extraordinary life through dramatised excerpts from his letters.
Thomas Allen
Internationally acclaimed, the leading lyrical baritone is noted for his skill not only as a singer, but also for his acting. In this programme, Allen takes a masterclass with trainees from the National Opera Studio, looking at scenes from Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Britten’s Billy Budd. He also talks in interview about his career and his approach to opera.
Underground Art
Since it opened in 1863, the London Underground has been a source of fascination for a colourful assortment of writers, artists, musicians and film-makers. It has been in its time a testing ground for a new form of traction power – electricity, a shelter for thousands during the Blitz, and a setting for films and television programmes. This imaginative journey through its labyrinthine tunnels looks at some of the creative by-products of this subterranean world.
V.s Naipaul
West Indian author, V. S. Naipaul, acclaimed for books such as A House for Mr. Biswas and In a Free State, talks in interview about his writing, in particular his autobiographically-based novel, The Enigma of Arrival. He contrasts the inspiration he found for this work in the English countryside, where he now lives, with the Caribbean, African and Indian influences that dominate his fiction and travel titles. The programme is illustrated with readings from his work.
Barbara Dickson
After many years as a folk singer, Barbara Dickson went on to become one of Britain’s most popular recording and concert artistes. This film shows off the diversity of her vocal talent and she is seen tackling a classical aria for the first time – Gluck’s Che faro senza Euridice from Orfeo ed Euridice.
The Penguin Cafe Orchestra
Under its leader and composer Simon Jeffes, this ensemble has been making its own idiosyncratic brand of music since the mid-1970s, drawing on classical and avant-garde sources, as well as pop, folk and ethnic forms, with instruments ranging from the piano, cello, violin and drums, to the ukelele, electric guitar and penny whistle. A studio recording of performances by the PCO is punctuated with interviews in which they discuss their original and eclectic style.
Fay Godwin
No photographer has captured such a complete portrait of rural Britain in the late twentieth century as Fay Godwin, using a camera rather than a brush to continue a centuries-old British tradition of landscape artistry. This programme travels with her as she charts her personal vision of the British countryside – one that finds beauty not only in the grandeur of mountains and mists but also in the bleak landscape surrounding a nuclear power station.
Anthony Green
A leading member of the Royal Academy, Green is an outstanding painter in the tradition of English individualism. He is noted for his extraordinarily detailed paintings which lovingly tell the story of his life and his marriage. This film on his work shows Green at his London home, where he takes viewers through his work with a lively commentary.