Explore the breadth of music celebrated at the Proms via this weekly curated television show. The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Your monthly journey through the fascinating world of space and astronomy with the latest thinking on what's out there in space and what you can see in the night sky.
The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are a series of lectures on a single topic, which have been held at the Royal Institution in London each year since 1825. The lectures present scientific subjects to a general audience, including young people, in an informative and entertaining manner. Michael Faraday initiated the first Christmas Lecture series in 1825. This came at a time when organised education for young people was scarce. Faraday presented a total of nineteen series in all.
Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. Voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has run since 1 October 1975 with over five hundred episodes made, directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alan Yentob, Roly Keating, Frederick Baker, Volker Schlondorff and Vikram Jayanti. Arena's subjects are a roll-call of the world's best known cultural figures from the 20th and 21st centuries, from singers Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse to academics Edward Said and Eric Hobsbawm, from writers Jean Genet and V S Naipaul to artists Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.
BBC Young Musician (Young Musician of the Year) first appeared on our TV screens in 1978. The brainchild of BBC producers Humphrey Burton, Walter Todds and Roy Tipping, the biennial competition has developed an enviable reputation for finding superstar musicians including Nicola Benedetti, Mark Simpson and Sheku Kanneh-Mason.
Ed Asner tells the story of RKO Pictures from the 1920s to the 1960s.
An anthology series of various plays and dramatic performances.
In this TV documentary series, shown on BBC four, the fashion world is investigated in six episodes each with a distinctly different angle to provide a multi-faceted look of the inner workings of high-end fashion lines. For example, in episode 1 we are shown the runway and what goes into making a million dollar show that is over in five minutes, or in episode the power of the press is examined.
This television documentary in four episodes features interviews, archival footage, and scenery to trace the history of railroads from Victorian England to high-tech Japan.
Folk musicians from both sides of the Atlantic come together in what have been called “the greatest backporch shows ever.” Collaborative live performances by various leading folk and country musicians playing music from Scotland, Ireland, England and North America.
Michael Parkinson reflects on the most memorable subjects of his interviews from the 1970s and 1980s.
A documentary series about pop and rock albums that are considered the best or most distinctive of a well-known band or musician or that exemplify a stage in the history of music.
Showcasing the best in international documentaries, Storyville has developed an enviable reputation since its inception more than a decade ago. Screening over 340 films, from some 70 different countries, the strand has garnered a staggering array of awards: five Oscars, 15 Griersons, three Peabodys and two International Emmys. In true, unique, Storyville style, the new series promises to deliver the strand's usual eclectic mix of compelling stories from across the globe.
The main decision-makers from Israel, the Arab states, Russia and the US tell the inside story of the Arab-Israel conflict.
Aubrey Manning sets out on a journey to study the changing face of Britain's countryside
Over three episodes, Dawn French interviewed some of the most prolific and celebrated female comedians of the time. Later in 2006, several of the interviews were shown in full. The interviewees being: Whoopi Goldberg, Catherine Tate, Kathy Burke, Julie Walters, Victoria Wood and Joan Rivers.
Documentary series which ranges widely over Britain's social and cultural history, its narrative-led storytelling offering a richly immersive and varied window onto the past.
Quiz show hosted by Marcus Du Sautoy who poses the trickiest puzzles to bend the minds of the team members Kathy Sykes, Irving Finkel, Jim Al-Khalili and Richard Vranch.
Holidays in the Danger Zone is a series of documentaries, originally broadcast on BBC Four in the UK. They have also been shown on BBC Two and exported to other countries, including Canada.
The series of travelogues see the presenters visit countries which are far off the beaten track.
⁕Holidays in the Axis of Evil was first to be broadcast. It was presented by Ben Anderson and included visits to North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and Cuba - the countries named by George W. Bush, the US president, as members of an "Axis of Evil".
⁕America Was Here takes Anderson to countries where the US either intervened in conflicts or fought wars at some point in recent history. They include Cambodia, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Vietnam.
⁕The Violent Coast includes visits to one of the most dangerous parts of the world, on the western tip of Africa, as Anderson travels through Côte d'Ivoire, Benin, Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
⁕Rivers takes a slightly different approach. Instead of featuring specific countries, Anderson travels along five of the world's most dangerous rivers - the Amazon River, Ganges, Congo River, Euphrates and Jordan River - which pass through many disputed territories.
Robert Hughes tackles the work and lives of three remarkable 20th-century architects: Albert Speer, Mies van der Rohe, and Antonio Gaudi - whose work did so much to shape the modern world. Hughes looks at how each one used space in different ways to express our response, respectively, to the power of religion (Gaudi), the power of the State (Speer), and the power of the corporation (Mies van der Rohe).