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.
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.
Documentary exploring the music of rock band Roxy Music, who have a good claim to be one of the UK's most influential bands. Led by charismatic front man Bryan Ferry, their striking style and great songs won them an army of fans who would go on to make their own mark in the world of music. In this celebration of the music of both Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, insights and anecdotes are provided by household names from Sadie Frost to Glenn Gregory & Martyn Ware, Gaz Coombes, New Order's Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert, Shaun Ryder and Alan McGee, Ana Matronic and more.
Documentary following the discovery and investigation of a 4,000-year-old body that was preserved in a peat bog in Cashel in the Irish midlands
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
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.
Professor Jim Al-Khalili looks at how we have created machines that can simulate, augment, and even outperform the human mind - and why we shouldn't let this spook us. He reveals the story of the pursuit of AI, the emergence of machine learning and the recent breakthroughs brought about by artificial neural networks. He shows how AI is not only changing our world but also challenging our very ideas of intelligence and consciousness. Along the way, we'll investigate spam filters, meet a cutting-edge chatbot, look at why a few altered pixels makes a computer think it's looking at a trombone rather than a dog and talk to Demis Hassabis, who heads DeepMind and whose stated mission is to 'solve intelligence, and then use that to solve everything else'. Stephen Hawking remarked 'AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilisation. Or the worst'. Jim argues that AI is a potent new tool that should enhance our lives, not replace us.
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.
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.
Adrian Edmondson narrates a documentary chronicling the story of Stiff Records, a tiny independent that took music out of the boardroom and gave it back to the fans. Stiff's successes included Nick Lowe, the Damned, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Madness, Tracey Ullman and the Pogues. Contributors include Captain Sensible, Jonathan Ross, Suggs, Shane MacGowan and label founders Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson.
Over twenty-five years after his death in July 1989, the controversial Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan remains an enigma. He was the most successful conductor in the history of classical music. Many of his recordings - of Italian opera, of Wagner and Richard Strauss, of Sibelius, Beethoven and Brahms - are treasured by music lovers around the world. Yet, even at the peak of his fame, his performances were variously criticised for being too opulent, too manicured, lacking warmth or spiritual depth. This musical profile explores the many paradoxes in the life and music of this controversial figure, who forged his international reputation in London with the Philharmonia Orchestra shortly after the end of the Second World War and went on to reign supreme in the classical music world during his three decades with the Berlin Philharmonic. The film also examines Karajan's belief in the visual power of music, and his determination to leave behind a substantial legacy of music on film.
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.
Janina Ramirez explores the BBC archives to create a TV history of Leonardo Da Vinci, discovering what lies beneath the Mona Lisa and even how he acquired his anatomical knowledge.
Big Bill Broonzy would inspire a generation of musicians, yet he was not the man they believed him to be. This first, very intimate, biography of the pioneering bluesman uncovers the mystery of who Broonzy really was and follows his remarkable and colorful journey from the racist Deep South to the clubs of Chicago and all across the world. With contributions from Pete Seeger, Ray Davies, Keith Richards, Martin Carthy, John Renbourn, and members of the Broonzy family. Broonzy's own words are read by Clarke Peters.
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.
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.
Dr Michael Mosley investigates Britain's most secretive and controversial military research base, Porton Down, on its 100th anniversary. He comes face to face with chemical and biological weapons old and new, reveals the truth about shocking animal and human testing, and discovers how the latest science and technology are helping to defend us against terrorist attacks and rogue nations.
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…
Built around the earliest, until now unseen, footage of the Clash in concert, filmed by Julien Temple as they opened the infamous Roxy club in a dilapidated Covent Garden on January 1st 1977, this show takes us on a time-travelling trip back to that strange planet that was Great Britain in the late 1970s and the moment when punk emerged into the mainstream consciousness. Featuring the voices of Joe Strummer and the Clash from the time, and intercutting the raw and visceral footage of this iconic show, with telling moments from the BBC's New Year's Eve, Hogmanay and New Year's Day schedules of nearly 40 years ago, it celebrates that great enduring British custom of getting together, en masse and often substantially the worse for wear, to usher in the New Year.
This musical celebration charts the lives and careers of some of the biggest selling acts in Irish rock, punk and pop from Van Morrison and Thin Lizzy to The Undertones and U2. From the pioneers of the showbands touring in the late 50s through to the modern day, the film examines their lineage and connections and how the hardcore, rocking sound of Belfast merged with the more melodic, folky Dublin tradition to form what we now recognise as Irish rock and pop.
