David Olusoga reveals stories of the millions of Indian, African and Asian troops and ancillaries who fought during World War I.
China is the fastest growing nation in history, an economic superpower, but it has cultural ambitions too and nowhere is this clearer than in its embrace of Western classical music. Huge sums of government money have been poured into concert halls across the country and millions of young musicians, many of whom were inspired by the success of concert pianist Lang Lang, are now competing to help fill them. But how does a society that traditionally celebrates discipline and conformity adapt to the individualism and artistic freedom demanded by the music of Beethoven? Contributors include Lang Lang, Daniel Barenboim, conductor of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Chinese musicians from Shanghai's Symphony Orchestra and Conservatory as well as a new generation of aspiring classical musicians.
Medieval historian Dr Janina Ramirez looks back to a time when British craftsmen and their patrons created a new form of architecture. The art and architecture of France would dominate England for much of the medieval age. Yet British stonemasons and builders would make Gothic architecture their own, inventing a national style for the first time - Perpendicular Gothic - and giving Britain a patriotic backdrop to suit its new ambitions of chivalry and power. From a grand debut at Gloucester Cathedral to commemorate a murdered king to its final glorious flowering at King's College Chapel in Cambridge, the Perpendicular age was Britain's finest.
The Dreamboats & Petticoats brand has been developed to be synonymous with everything from the late 50/60's. Selling over 3.5 million copies across the album series, and boosted by the hit musical (sold over 1 million tickets), Dreamboats & Petticoats has now become cross generational with 'all the family' appreciating the iconic pop songs from this golden era.
Simon Armitage has written seven new poems about World War I that form the centre of his latest television documentary. Armitage visits French beaches, German prison camps, so-called 'thankful' villages and remote corners of the Scottish Highlands as he considers the death of over 700,000 British soldiers in the conflict and tells seven real-life war stories. He learns of those who lived and died through it, those who worked and grieved and cried through it, and even those who tunnelled to freedom beneath its very soil. Each story culminates in a poem inspired by Armitage's research. Featuring readings by both the poet himself and the surviving relatives of those whose stories he tells, this film offers an opportunity to reflect again on that catastrophic loss of life, and to think about how we commemorate the dead for the next 100 years.
In a revealing documentary, Mike Leigh, director of Secrets & Lies, Vera Drake and Abigail's Party among many others, talks to Alan Yentob about a unique body of work and a lifelong struggle to make films on his own terms. On day one of a Mike Leigh film, there is no script, no story and the actors do not know if they will even be in the final film. It is a process that has yielded some of cinema's most celebrated performances, and Leigh's new film Mr Turner is already winning critical acclaim. Actors including Jim Broadbent, Eddie Marsan, Sally Hawkins, Lesley Manville and James Corden give fascinating insights into the director and his distinctive method of working.