Deep Purple is one of the most influential and important guitar bands in history, one of the godfathers of the heavy metal genre, with over 100 million album sales worldwide to their name. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Deep Purple's groundbreaking double live album Made in Japan, this documentary explores these recordings and Deep Purple Mark 2, the line-up between 1969 and 1973.
The extraordinary story of comedian Bob Monkhouse's life and career, told through the vast private archive of films, TV shows, letters and memorabilia that he left behind.
Kenneth Williams was the star of the Carry Ons and Round the Horne. Despite his fame, he led a life full of mental torture as he tried to overcome his homosexuality in 1950s Britain. This film follows his life and eventual death based on the many diaries he kept
"Laughing with Hitler" is a journey into a supposedly humorless time. In the Third Reich, however, the Führer and his Nazi bigwigs were laughed at. The political jokes of the Hitler years were a barometer of true public opinion. But those who dared to make jokes critical of the regime lived dangerously. In the early Nazi era, Hitler jokes were punished as "insidious", during the war even as "undermining of military strength" and the penalty was the death penalty! The conflict with the Nazi authorities ended more mildly for other pranksters: the cheeky cabaret artist Werner Finck was deported to a concentration camp, but was released again.
Set and filmed at the iconic Maida Vale studios, The Dead Room tells the story of a long-running radio horror series and its veteran presenter and national treasure Aubrey Judd. But times are changing. Tastes are shifting. There’s a new young producer. Whatever happened to the classic ghost stories? The good old days? Aubrey soon discovers that all is not quiet in the eerie radio studio and that elements of his own past are not as dead and buried as he perhaps hoped…
An all star cast unite to perform a distinctive BBC Wales Television adaptation of Dylan Thomas's radio play, presented in collaboration with National Theatre Wales, to mark the centenary of Dylan Thomas' birth. The plot reveals the innermost thoughts of the residents of the small, Welsh fishing village Llareggub as it delves into the dreams of various townspeople including blind sailor Captain Cat, who is haunted by visions of drowned shipmates, Mog Edwards and Myfanwy Price, who dream of each other, and Mrs. Ogmore Pritchard, who dreams of her former husbands.
On October 5th 1962, the Beatles released their first single, Love Me Do. It was a moment that changed music history and popular culture forever. It was also an extraordinary year in social and cultural history, not just for Liverpool but for the world, with the Cuban missile crisis, John Glenn in space and beer at a shilling a pint. Stuart Maconie explores how the Beatles changed from leather and slicked back hair to suits and Beatle mops, and how their fashion set the pace for the sixties to follow. Pop artist Sir Peter Blake, Bob Harris and former Beatles drummer Pete Best join friends to reflect on how the Beatles evolved into John, Paul, George and Ringo - the most famous band in the world.
Doris Day has often been dismissed as an actress and overlooked as a singer, despite career highs such as Calamity Jane and Pillow Talk. Covering her early years as a band singer, and her troubled private life, this documentary re-evaluates one of the screen's most enduring legends.
This is the story of an unsung hero of photography: Harry Burton, the man whose images of the Tutankhamun excavation created a global sensation in the 1920s. Explore the spectacular locations where Burton worked, including Tutankhamun’s tomb and the surrounding temples.
Profile of veteran country singer Emmylou Harris, witnessing the heady success of her career while also discussing her late flowering of intensely personal and groundbreaking music, dealing with loss and the passing years.
Three years in the making in conjunction with the BBC. Using never seen before home movies, photos and eye witness accounts - this is the inside story of the world's biggest motorsport disaster.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra perform a live soundtrack in this premier stage adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes thriller.
Documentary celebrating the triumph, tragedy and human comedy that was Manchester record company, Factory. Started by the late Tony Wilson, Alan Erasmus, Peter Saville and Martin Hannett in the late 1970s, it became known as the home of Joy Divsion, New Order and Happy Mondays and for creating the Hacienda club. The label pioneered Britain's independent pop culture, creating a new Manchester and blowing a shed-load of money. Includes interviews with all the main players in the Factory story.
Gauguin’s vivid artworks sell for millions. He was an inspired and committed multi-media artist who worked with the Impressionists and had a tempestuous relationship with Vincent van Gogh. But he was also a competitive and rapacious man who left his wife to bring up five children and used his colonial privilege to travel to Polynesia, where in his 40s he took ‘wives’ between 13 and 15 years old, creating images of them and their world that promoted a fantasy paradise of an unspoilt Eden in the Pacific. Later, he challenged the colonial authorities and the Catholic Church in defence of the indigenous people, dying in the Marquesas Islands in 1903, sick, impoverished and alone.
Katherine Ryan presents a celebration of one of the biggest comedy talents to ever appear on the small screens – the razor-sharp-tongued first lady of laughter, Joan Rivers.
A young squire accused of murdering a young girl that did not return his feelings of love reveals a supernatural secret at his trial.
Crime writer Ian Rankin investigates The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Starting with Robert Louis Stevenson's nightmare in September 1885, Rankin traces the roots of this story, which stretches back to Stevenson's childhood. Grave-robbers, hallucinatory drugs and prostitution all play their part in the disturbing account of Henry Jekyll's double-life, as Rankin's journey takes him into the yeasty draughts and unlit closes of the city that inspired the tale - Edinburgh.
Drama which tells the story of comedian Tony Hancock's love affair with his friend's wife, and her fight to save the man and his career.
Chaos theory has a bad name, conjuring up images of unpredictable weather, economic crashes and science gone wrong. But there is a fascinating and hidden side to Chaos, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand. It turns out that chaos theory answers a question that mankind has asked for millennia - how did we get here?
Well-known fans celebrate Stevie Wonder and his music by selecting some of his best-loved songs. Wonder is one of the dominant figures in American music, a multi-faceted genius whose music has permeated popular culture, and he is not short of celebrity fans. His musical achievements are lauded in this anthology of his greatest hits. Contributors include actor Martin Freeman, singers Alexander O'Neal, James Morrison, Beverley Knight and Corinne Bailey Rae, New Order's Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris, DJs Ana Matronic, Trevor Nelson and Norman Jay, Heaven's 17's Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware, journalist Sian Pattenden and presenter Emma Dabiri.
