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Watching: Arena

7.2•1975-10-01•3 Seasons

Season 1

Episode 628

Seasons

Season 1 Season 14 Season 50

Episodes

Theatre: Happy Birthday Royal Court

Art and Design: Art for Money's Sake?

Edinburgh International Festival 1976: Part 1

Edinburgh International Festival 1976: Part 2

Edinburgh International Festival 1976: Part 3

Theatre: A Dream Come True

Art and Design: After Samuel Palmer

Cinema: Eric Rohmer

Art and Design: The Illustrators: The Work of Mick Brownfield and Allan Manha

Cinema: Don Siegel

Theatre: The Cultural Common Market

Art and Design: Sculpture for the Blind/Linda Benedict-Jones/James Boswell

Theatre: Brecht in Newcastle

Cinema: Christmas Special

Art and Design: Sam Smith: Genuine England/Arena Review

Theatre: Spokesong/At Home with Mole

Art and Design: Ralph Steadman

Theatre: The Cultural Common Market: Peter Stein and the Schaubuhne

Art and Design: What Is a Hologram?/Kit Williams - Ring Around the Moon

Theatre: A Night Out

Art and Design: Family Pieces/Both Sides of the Line/The Divine and the Fantastic

Theatre: The Prospect Before Us

Art and Design: The Continuous Diary/Dine's Drawings

Theatre: Playwrights of the 70's

Edinburgh Festival

Art and Design: Richard Seifert

Theatre: Hands Off the Classics

Cinema: 21st London Film Festival

Art and Design: The Family/Wrapping up the Reichstag

Cinema: 21st London Film Festival - Part 2

Theatre: Leonard Rossiter

Cinema: The Deep

Cinema: The Force is with us?

Art and Design: 'The Journey' or The Memoirs of a Self-Confessed Surrealist

Cinema: The Force is with us? - Part 2/Howard Hawks

Theatre: ' But please, this is a farce! ' The story of The Cherry Orchard

Cinema: Joseph Conrad

Art and Design: Carrington

Cinema: Claude Renoir

Theatre: Hey Kids! Let's Do the Show Right Here ...

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Art and Design: Carl Andre

Cinema: Dancing Years

Theatre: Taking Our Time

Art and Design: Way Out West

Theatre: Children of the Gods

Television: When Is A Play Not A Play?

Art and Design: George Melly

Theatre: Arnold Wesker

Rock: Tubes on Tour

Vanessa Redgrave

Arena: The Museum of Drawers

Who is Poly Styrene?

Athol Fugard: A Lesson from Aloes

Maler's Requiem - Words and Images

Piaf AND What Did You Do in 'The Warp' Daddy?

Other Writers Will Tell You Different and The Moving Picture Mime Show

La Dame aux Gladiolas

'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men ': Alabama 40 Years On

Tell Us the Truth

The King and I AND Journey to the Surface of the Earth

Their Lips are Sealed

Ring Around the Moon

Pictures of the Mind

Six Days in September

Building for Change

Athol Fugard A Lesson from Aloes

Lene Lovich Sleeping Beauty

Mentioned in Dispatches

Isaac Singer's Nightmare and Mrs Pupko's Beard

Peggy Taub, the Learned Goat and Other People ...

Bring Me Back a Song

' I talk about me - I am Africa'

Rudies Come Back or The Rise and Rise of 2-Tone

Victoria Wood and Andrea Dunbar

Climb Every Mountain or Nothing Succeeds Like Failure

Dedicated Followers of Fashion

In Their Own Image AND Facing Up to Myself

Making 'The Shining'

Hazell Meets His Makers

Getting Away from Sidney

Today Carshalton Beaches ... Tomorrow Croydon

The Smallest Theatre

A Walk with Amos Oz

God's Fifth Columnist

Did You Miss Me ...?

The Return of Lupino Lane

The Comic Strip Hero

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

If the Music Had to Stop

Curtains? The Future of the National Youth Theatre

The Cinema of Andrzej Wajda

'I Thought I Was Taller' A Short History of Mel Brooks

Have You Seen the Mona Lisa...?

Let Them Know We're Here

A Pretty British Affair

The Art of Radio Times AND The Eye of the 'Eye'

A Tall Story: How Salman Rushdie Pickled All India

Brixton to Barbados

Private Life of the Ford Cortina

What Makes Rabbit Run?

Here They Kill People for It

Desert Island Discs

Listen to Britain AND Housing Problems

The Orson Welles Story: Part One

The Orson Welles Story: Part Two

Mike Leigh Making Plays

A Genius Like Us

A Play for Bridport

Upon Westminster Bridge

Three Steps to Heaven

Happy Days (Samuel Beckett Season)

Eh Joe (Samuel Beckett Season)

Rockaby (Samuel Beckett Season)

Not I (Samuel Beckett Season)

Quad (Samuel Beckett Season)

Krapp's Last Tape (Samuel Beckett Season)

Guernica: The Long Exile

Classically Cuban: Alicia Alonso and the Cuban National Ballet

The Catherine Wheel

Bette Davis - The Benevolent Volcano

Anthony Powell - An Invitation to the Dance

The Ghost Writer

Jazz Juke-Box II

Classic British Documentaries

The Everly Brothers Reunion Concert

George Orwell 1: Such Such Were the Joys

George Orwell 2: The Road to Wigan Pier

George Orwell 3: Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell 4: The Lion and the Unicorn

George Orwell 4: Nineteen Eighty-four

Say Amen Someone

The Theatre of Dario Fo

The Caravaggio Conspiracy

Between Dreaming and Waking

Ken Russell 's Elgar

Jerry Lee Lewis

True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist

My Dinner with Louis

Milan Kundera- Laughter and Forgetting

A Tribute to Joseph Losey

Beat This! A Hip Hop History

The Everly Brothers: Songs of Innocence and Experience

Billie Holiday: The Long Night of Lady Day

We Don't Like Your House Either!

Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense: The Music of Fela Kuti

After the Rehearsal

What's Cuba Playing At?

Music of the other Americas

Pavarotti at Madison Square Garden

My Son the Novelist

Painting for Pleasure ... and Profit: Five Artists of the 80s

From an Immigrant's Notebook: Karen Blixen in Africa

How Glorious is the Garden?

Them and Uz: A film about Tony Harrison

Watch Me Move...

Hugh Masekela: The African Ambassador

The Theatre of Robert Wilson

Blues Night: Introduction

Blues Night: Sonny Boy Williamson Sings

Blues Night: B.B. King Speaks

Blues Night: Chicago Blues

Blues Night: Blind John Davis

Blues Night: Blues Medley

Blues Night: Big Bill Blues

The Accordion Strikes Back

The Cinema of Francesco Rosi

The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima

The Apollo Story: part 1

The Apollo Story: part 2

The New Babylon

The Journey Man

Go-Go in Washington DC

Marguerite Yourcenar

Two Painters Amazed

Caribbean Nights: Caribbean Journey

Caribbean Nights: Medley

Caribbean Nights: Poetry

Caribbean Nights: Ska

Caribbean Nights: The Latin Caribbean

Caribbean Nights: Maytime on the Mosquito Coast

Caribbean Nights: Calypso and Carnival

Caribbean Nights: Whicker's Caribbean World

Caribbean Nights: Latin Sound

Caribbean Nights: God's Chillun

Caribbean Nights Bob Marley

Caribbean Nights: C.L.R. James's First Cricket XI

Caribbean Nights: Danzon

Caribbean Nights: Rasta and the Ball

Caribbean Nights: Arturo Sandoval

Caribbean Nights: Kapo

The Life and Times of Don Luis Bunuel

The Spirit of Lorca

Cambodian Witness

Scarfe on Scarfe

Stand by Your Dream: Tammy Wynette

Martin Chambi and the Heirs of the Incas

The Confessions of Robert Crumb

Ruth, Roses and Revolver

A Brother with Perfect Timing

Tarkovsky's Cinema

Putting Ourselves in the Picture

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

Bayan Ko Pilipinas

The Waugh Trilogy: Bright Young Thing

The Waugh Trilogy: Mayfair and the Jungle

The Waugh Trilogy: An Englishman's Home

German Festival: Joseph Beuys

ScreenPlay: Cariani and the Courtesans

Revolutionary with a Paintbox

Of Cats and Mice

The Dandy-Beano Story

Broadway - The Great White Way

Ryszard Kapuscinski: Your Man Who is There

My Name Is Celia Cruz

All on a Mardi Gras Day Part One

All on a Mardi Gras Day: Part Two

An Andalucian Journey: Gypsies and Flamenco 1

An Andalucian Journey: Gypsies and Flamenco 2

Robert Mapplethorpe

The English Thoroughbred

Byrne About Byrne

Rhythms of the World: Randy Travis at the Albert Hall

Ten Green Bottles

Clint Eastwood: The Man with No Name.

Moving Across the World on Horses

History Boys on the Rampage

The Unforgettable Nat King Cole

Tales from Barcelona

The Tip of the Iceberg

Laurens van der Post and Albert Sample

New York - The Secret African City

Eugene Ionesco : the Joke's on Us

John Cassavetes

Power in the Blood

The Old Brass Plate Rattle Test - the Englishman and his Jukebox

Berthold Lubetkin

The Other Graham Greene

Slim Gaillard's Civilisation 1: A Traveller's Tale

Slim Gaillard's Civilisation 2: How High the Moon

Slim Gaillard's Civilisation 3: My Dinner with Dizzy

Animal Night: Smashing Pigs

Animal Night: Sacred Elephant

Animal Night: Great Wildlife Presenters Through the Ages

Animal Night: John Daniel the First

Animal Night: A Day in the Life of Sam the Dog

Animal Night: Animals on Trial

Animal Night: The Animal Night Debate

25 x 5: the Continuing Adventures of the Rolling Stones

Jerry Lee Lewis

Roberto Rossellini

Next Time Dear God Please Choose Someone Else

Fred Zinnemann: A Director's Life

Spike and Company - Do It a Cappella

Peggy and Her Playwrights

The English Rose

Paris Is Burning

Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam

The Ten Commandments of Krzysztof Kieslowski

Kino Perestroika

The Daily Worker Story

Oooh Er, Missus! - The Frankie Howerd Story

Agatha Christie - Unfinished Portrait

Food Night: Introduction

Food Night: Modern Food

Food Night: Great Moments in Food History

Food Night: The Story of Food in 27 Minutes and 43 Seconds

Food Night: Good Manners

Food Night: What's Kosher?

Food Night: The Last Supper

Food Night: The Complete History of the Potato

Food Night: I Just Happen to Have One Here I Made Earlier

Food Night: Movable Feast - the Politics of Disgust

Food Night: Eating for One

Food Night: Fasting and Abstinence

Food Night: Debate

Lifepulse - a Natural Thriller

Miller Meets Mandela

Derek Jarman - a Portrait

Anselm Kiefer : Operation Sealion

The Strange Story of Joe Meek

Caroline 199 - A Pirate's Tale

Staring at the Ceiling

Three Irish Writers

One Irish Rover

The Importance of Being Oscar

Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon

Elmore Leonard 's Criminal Records

Texas Saturday Night

The Grass Arena

Billy, How Did You Do It? 1

Billy, How Did You Do It? 2

Billy, How Did You Do It? 3

Masters of the Canvas

Six Degrees of Separation: a New York Tale

The Incredible Case of Comrade

Croatia - the Artists' War

Otto Dix : a Tale of Two Germanies

Chi-Chi the Panda

Armistead Maupin Is a Man I Dreamt Up

Last Supper - Frank on Frank

A Spanish Odyssey - a Portrait of Javier Mariscal

An Argentinian Journey: 1: The Gaucho and the Pampas

An Argentinian Journey: 2: Zamba, Chacarera and Chamame

An Argentinian Journey: 3: Pacha Mama - Sacred Land

Sportswriter: the Fight, the Match and the Race

Linda McCartney, behind the Lens

The Graham Green Trilogy: England Made Me (1904-39)

The Graham Greene Trilogy: The Dangerous Edge (1940-60)

The Graham Greene Trilogy: A World of My Own (1961-91)

On the Road with Boggs

The Grateful and the Dead

A Tribute to Dizzy Gillespie

Edward Said: the Idea of Empire

The Last Soviet Citizen

Only the Names Have Been Changed

Duchamp's Fountain

Edgar Reitz: Return to Heimat

Tales Of Rock And Roll: Peggy Sue

Heartbreak Hotel

Walk on the Wild Side

Highway 61 Revisited

Arena: Radio Night: Introduction

Radio Night: The Seven Ages of Radio: First: the Infant.

Radio Night: TV Talk, Radio Rabbit What does the voice reveal?

Radio Night: The Seven Ages of Radio 2: The Schoolboy.

Radio Night: Heard But Not Seen

Radio Night: Back to Square One

Radio Night: The Seven Ages of Radio 3: The Lover.

Radio Night: Sunday Dinner

Radio Night: The Seven Ages of Radio 4: The Soldier.

Radio Night: Pirates

Radio Night: The Seven Ages of Radio 5: The Judge.

Radio Night: TV Theft, Radio Rip-Off

Radio Night: The Seven Ages of Radio 6: The Old Man.

Radio Night: The Spot FX Man

Radio Night: The Seven Ages of Radio 7: Senility.

Radio Night: It's Life, Jim

Radio Night: The Time Signal

Radio Night: The Two Voyages of Donald Crowhurst

Radio Night: The Shipping Forecast

The Next Voice You Hear

In Search of Oz

Who Is Vladimir Pozner?

The Dark Side of Black

The Ring - a South London Tale

Theatre without Actors

Trouble Man - the Last Years of Marvin Gaye

Relics Introduction

Relics: Einstein's Brain

Relics: Curse of the Firebeetle

Relics: The Grave Case of Charlie Chaplin

Philip K Dick - a Day In the Afterlife

Voices from the Island

Cindy Sherman - Nobody's Here but Me

Bahia of all the Saints

Sandra Bernhard - Confession of a Pretty Lady

Louise Bourgeois

The Peter Sellers Story 1

The Peter Sellers Story: 2: Jack to Jacques

The Peter Sellers Story: 3: I Am Not a Funny Man

Punk and the Pistols

The Burger and the King

Stories My Country Told Me

Tony Bennett's New York

Caesar's Writers

There's No Such Thing as a Small Head of State

Busby, Stein and Shankly - the Football Men: Underground

Busby, Stein and Shankly - the Football Men: Football is the Faith

Busby, Stein and Shankly - the Football Men: The Price of Glory

Cigars - out of the Humidor

The Noel Coward Trilogy: The Boy Actor

The Noel Coward Trilogy: Captain Coward

The Noel Coward Trilogy: Sail Away

Frank Sinatra: The Voice of the Century

The Brian Epstein Story: The Sun Will Shine Tomorrow

The Brian Epstein Story: Tomorrow Never Knows

Cuba Night: the 40-Year Face-off

Cuba Night: Eisenhower, Kennedy and Khrushchev: How It All Began

Cuba Night: A Diamond in the Rough

Cuba Night: LBJ, Nixon and Brezhnev: the Middle Years

Cuba Night: The Simpsons: The Trouble with Trillions

Cuba Night: Reagan and Gorbachev: Castro, Cuba and the Fall of Communism

Cuba Night: Who Owns Che? The Importance of Not Being Ernesto

Cuba Night: The Clinton Years: Cuba Today and Tomorrow

Salman Rushdie and the Ground beneath His Feet

Looking for the Iron Curtain

Blondes - Jayne Mansfield

Blondes - Diana Dors

Blondes - Anita Ekberg

The Fine Art of Separating People from Their Money

Wisconsin Death Trip

Clint Eastwood: Out of the West

Clint Eastwood: American Film-maker

James Ellroy's Feast of Death

And the Winner Is ...

Budd Schulberg - a Contender

Salgado - the Spectre of Hope

Stalin - the Red God

According to Beryl

Night of Entertainers: Sykes and a Day

Night of Entertainers: Drake's Progress

Night of Entertainers: The 1812 Overture in E Flat Major Opus 49

Night of Entertainers: Max Bygraves - I Wanna Tell You a Story

The Private Dirk Bogarde: Part 1

The Private Dirk Bogarde: Part 2

Estonia Dreams of Eurovision

Kurosawa: Part One

Kurosawa: Part Two

The Peter Sellers Story: As He Filmed It

Harold Pinter: 1: The Room

Harold Pinter: 2: Celebration

One for the Road

Politics and Pinter

Radio Ha! Meet the Dead Ringers

Radio Ha! It's Time for Just a Minute

I Am from Nowhere

The Real Jane Austen

The Many Lives of Richard Attenborough: Part One

The Many Lives of Richard Attenborough: Part Two

Imagine Imagine

Dylan Thomas - from Grave to Cradle

Buffalo Bill's Wild West: How the Myth Was Made

Alec Guinness, a Secret Man

Pavarotti - the Last Tenor

Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus

Shadowing the Third Man

Remember the Secret Policeman's Ball?

Painting the Clouds - a Portrait of Dennis Potter

Dennis Potter: It's In the Songs! It's In the Songs!

Potter on Television

Hank Williams - Honky Tonk Blues

Calling Hedy Lamarr

Francis Bacon's Arena

Bob Dylan: No Direction Home: Part 1

Bob Dylan: No Direction Home: Part 2

Dylan in the Madhouse

The Princess and Panorama

Routemasters! The Double Decker Bus Conductors

Galton and Simpson

The Underground

Bob Marley - Exodus 77

Encountering Bergman

Bergman and Faro Island

Bergman and the Cinema

Flames of Passion: the Other Side of British Cinema

The Original Archers

Tribute Bands - into the Limelight

Tribute Bands - Live at the Limelight

Dylan's Folk - the Pure, the Bad and the Holy

The Other Side of the Mirror - Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival

Dylan in the Madhouse

Ken Dodd's Happiness

The Strange Luck of V.S. Naipaul

The Hunt for Moby-Dick

Whale Night: The Whale in the Museum

Whale Night: Philip Hoare's Guide to Whales: Episode 1: Baleen

Whale Night: Philip Hoare's Guide to Whales: Episode 2: Toothed

Whale Night: Philip Hoare's Guide to Whales: Episode 3: Arctic

The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector

Tony Bennett: the Music Never Ends

Harold Pinter Night: The Birthday Party

Brian Eno - Another Green World

Harold Pinter - A Celebration

Johnny Mercer - The Dream's on Me

Dave Brubeck - In His Own Sweet Way

Rolf Harris Paints His Dream

Produced by George Martin

George Harrison: Living in the Material World: Part 1

George Harrison: Living in the Material World: Part 2

Dickens on Film

Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes

Sonny Rollins '74: Rescued!

The Dreams of William Golding

Jonathan Miller

Amy Winehouse - The Day She Came to Dingle

The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour: Episode 1: Magical Mystery Tour Revisited

The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour: Episode 2: 'The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour

Screen Goddesses

Sister Wendy and the Art of the Gospel

aka Norman Parkinson

Arena: The National Theatre: Part One - The Dream

Arena: The National Theatre: Part Two - War and Peace

Whatever Happened to Spitting Image?

The National Theatre: Learning Zone

The 50 Year Argument - The New York Review of Books

Nicolas Roeg - It's About Time

Loretta Lynn - Still a Mountain Girl

All the World's a Screen - Shakespeare on Film

1966 - 50 Years Ago Today

The Roundhouse - The People's Palace

Alone with Chrissie Hynde

American Epic: Episode 1: The Big Bang

American Epic: Episode 2: Blood and Soil

Kirsty Young: 75 Years of Desert Island Discs

American Epic: Episode 3: Out of the Many, the One

American Epic: Episode 4: The Sessions

Stanley and his Daughters

Bob Dylan – Trouble No More

Nothing Like a Dame

Unstoppable: Sean Scully and the Art of Everything

Cindy Sherman #untitled

Kusama: Infinity

Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin

Bergman: A Year in the Life

The $50 Million Art Swindle

A British Guide to the End of the World

Everything Is Connected - George Eliot's Life

Seamus Heaney and the Music of What Happens

Hilary Mantel: Return to Wolf Hall

The Changin’ Times of Ike White

I Am Not Your Negro

Keith Haring: Street Art Boy

Fela Kuti: Father of Afrobeat

My Father and Me

Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes

African Apocalypse

Dark Matter: A History of the Afrofuture

Painted with My Hair

B. Catling: Where Does It All Come From?

The Vasulka Effect

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World

James Joyce’s Ulysses

T.S. Eliot: Into the Waste Land

Kanaval: A People's History of Haiti in Six Chapters

Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock 'n' Roll

The Mysterious Mr Lagerfeld

The Stones and Brian Jones

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Coco Chanel Unbuttoned

Being Kae Tempest

Caroline Aherne: Queen of Comedy

Mad About the Boy: The Noel Coward Story

Maria Callas: The Final Act

Alan Bennett 90 Years On

Loaded: Lads, Mags and Mayhem

From Roger Moore with Love

Steven McRae: Dancing Back to the Light

My Brain: After the Rupture

McCartney: The Hunt for the Lost Bass

Overview

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.