Arena

In a career stretching 50 years, legendary music producer Phil Spector has avoided a substantial interview - until now.
Spector transformed rock and roll, becoming the first music producer to be a star in his own right. He gave the world "Be My Baby", "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" and John Lennon's "Imagine", and soundtracked a generation. Accused of murdering 40-year-old Los Angeles nightclub hostess Lana Clarkson, his trial in September 2007 ended dramatically in a hung jury. The trial reopens in October 2008 and threatens to eclipse his musical legacy for a second time.

Keith Haring blazed a trail through the legendary art scene of 1980s New York and revolutionised the worlds of pop culture and fine art.

Born into a farming family in rural Northern Ireland, Seamus Heaney became the finest poet of his generation and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, but his career coincided with one of the bloodiest political upheavals of the 20th century, the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Hilary Mantel: Return to Wolf Hall. One of the world's greatest living writers - Hilary Mantel - delves into her past and present, intertwining the themes of the Wolf Hall trilogy with stories from her own life.

Before Spartacus struck down his first opponent in the arena, there were many gladiators who passed through the gates onto the sand.'Spartacus: Gods of the Arena' tells the story of the original Champion of the House of Batiatus: Gannicus in a more ruthless time before Spartacus' arrival where honor was just finding it's way into the arena.

Before Spartacus struck down his first opponent in the arena, there were many gladiators who passed through the gates onto the sand.'Spartacus: Gods of the Arena' tells the story of the original Champion of the House of Batiatus: Gannicus in a more ruthless time before Spartacus' arrival where honor was just finding its way into the arena.

These three programs trace Noël Coward’s life, career and legacy.

Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama’s work pushed boundaries that often alienated her from her peers and those in power in the art world. Kusama was an underdog with everything stacked against her: the trauma of growing up in Japan during World War II, life in a dysfunctional family that discouraged her creative ambitions, sexism and racism in the art establishment, and mental illness.

Documentary that exposes a darker, less well-known side of film director Ingmar Bergman. Focusing on 1957, a landmark year in which Bergman directed two films and four plays, Jane Magnusson explores not only the director’s filmography but also his, at times, complex and turbulent personal life. Using a wealth of previously unseen archive material, contemporary interviews and a fantastic selection of clips from Ingmar Bergman’s vast body of work, this is a fascinating and unflinching study of one of the giants of world cinema.

The arresting sight of Sister Wendy Beckett, all teeth and glasses, burst on to our screens in the 1990s. An instant star, she travelled the world in her habit telling us the story of Christian art and painting but revealing little of her own extraordinary story. Arena goes in search of the 'real' Wendy, who, at 82, talks frankly, humorously, and profoundly about her life and spirituality for the first time.