Arena (1975)
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.
-
Episode 1 - Blackpool
Release Date: 1989-01-131989 documentary which takes a look at Europe's most successful holiday resort, famous for its Tower, illuminations, landladies and party political conferences. Includes interviews with Norman Tebbit, John Cole, Paul Theroux and Tony Benn.
-
Episode 4 - Laurens Van Der Post And Albert Sample
Release Date: 1989-02-03Two films by award-winning director Georg Troller, made for West German televisi on's arts programme PERSONENBESCHREIBUNG, profiling Sir Laurens Van Der Post and his work in drawing attention to the plight of Africa's threatened tribes; and on the Texan criminal Albert Sample.
-
Episode 5 - New York - The Secret African City
Release Date: 1989-02-10Report from New York, on the import of African gods, myths and rituals into the city by inhabitants of African descent.
-
Episode 6 - Eugene Ionesco: The Joke's On Us
Release Date: 1989-02-17Assessment of the life and work of the dramatist Eugene Ionesco.
-
Episode 8 - John Cassavetes
Release Date: 1989-02-24Tribute to actor and director John Cassavetes who died in February 1989. Friends, associates and fellow directors remember the man and his work.
-
Episode 9 - The Old Brass Plate Rattle Test - The Englishman And His Jukebox
Release Date: 1989-03-17 -
Episode 10 - Juke Box Jury
Release Date: 1989-03-19Special edition of the programme to celebrate the centenary of the juke box.
-
Episode 11 - Lubetkin Thoughts Of A Twentieth Century Anarchist
Release Date: 1989-03-31Documentary on the life and work of architect Berthold Lubetkin.
-
Episode 13 - The Other Graham Greene
Release Date: 1989-04-21For some 25 years Graham Greene has found himself the victim of a bizarre masquerade. A man calling himself Graham Greene has opened hotels, courted high society in the south of France and was entertained by tea planters in India convincd he was the real Graham Greene.
-
Episode 14 - 25 X 5 The Continuing Adventures Of The Rolling Stones
Release Date: 1989-12-27An Arena Special looking at the career, development and success of the band over the past 25 years, and including clips from the Stones' own archives and from the hitherto unseen GREAT ROCK 'N' ROLL CIRCUS of 1969, made in answer to the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour". It traces in detail the high and low points of the group over the years and their present continuing success.