Original title
imagine…
Released
6/11/2003
Origin country
GB
Genre
Documentary, News
Production companies
BBC, BBC Studios Specialist Factual Productions
Status
Returning series
Number of seasons
51
Number of episodes
339
The biggest names from the world of art, film, music, literature and dance. Alan Yentob gets close up with those shaping today's cultural world.
Renowned American playwright Arthur Miller discusses his life and work with Alan Yentob.
In 2005, an extraordinary sculpture by leading Brit artist Marc Quinn of a naked, heavily pregnant, disabled Alison Lapper was unveiled on the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. It's a project that's been dogged with controversy. Following the creation of Alison Lapper Pregnant over five years, this film tells the compelling story of how two very different people came together to challenge preconceptions about beauty and what is considered normal.
Film documenting the creation of Love, a spectacular collaboration bringing together the magic of The Beatles' music with the imagination of Cirque Du Soleil. The project was initially the idea of George Harrison, two years before his death from cancer in 2001. Sir George Martin, along with his son/co-producer Giles Martin demonstrate the process by which the soundtrack was created. Also features interviews with Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison.
Alan Yentob presents a documentary about cartoon pop group Gorillaz' foray into the world of Chinese opera, with Damon Albarn composing his first full length score and Jamie Hewlett designing a myriad of gigantic sets and elaborate costumes. Drawing on the 1970s cult television series, Monkey - Journey to the West has a cast that includes the cloud-hopping, mountain-somersaulting Monkey, his mates Pigsy, Sandy and Tripitaka, plus acrobats, martial artists, umbrella-twirling girls, a horse-eating dragon, a skeleton demon and a giant Buddha. Produced by Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris), in co-production with Manchester International Festival and the State Opera House in Berlin, they present a new contemporary opera entirely in Mandarin directed by Chen Shi-Zheng. This film follows Albarn and Hewlett on a journey from Beijing to Paris, working with martial artists and acrobats; leading up to its world premiere at the Manchester International Festival.
Drama-documentary presented by Alan Yentob, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role as Van Gogh. Every word spoken by the actors in this film is sourced from the letters that Van Gogh sent to his younger brother Theo, and of those around him. What emerges is a complex portrait of a sophisticated, civilised and yet tormented man. The film won a Rockie for Best Arts Documentary at the Banff World Media Festival in 2011, receiving critical acclaim for its fascinating insight into the life of the artist and its unique approach to storytelling.
The remarkable election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States has been propelled as much by his exceptional skill as an orator as by any other factor. From the silver-tongued to the tongue-tied, the sublime to the ridiculous, this programme takes a fond look at the art and history of the political speech. Alan Yentob joins the crowds at the inauguration in Washington, and traces the awesome power of orators from Cicero onwards, via Cromwell, Lincoln, Churchill, Hitler, Martin Luther King and many others. Among the contributors are Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, Bob Geldof, Neil Kinnock, Ted Sorensen, Tony Benn, William Hague, Geoffrey Howe, Diane Abbott, Charlotte Higgins, Alastair Campbell and Germaine Greer.
Alan Yentob introduces a revealing documentary which tells the story of the making of The Rolling Stones' acclaimed 1972 album, Exile on Main Street. Facing huge unpaid tax bills in Britain, the band fled to the French Riviera. Life was crazy and chaotic there, yet the band still managed to make one of the seminal albums of rock and roll history.
Imagine presents a feature-length documentary about the making of U2's seminal album Achtung Baby. Early in 2011, U2 returned to Hansa Studio in Berlin to discuss the making of Achtung Baby in this film directed by Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim (It Might Get Loud, Waiting for Superman, An Inconvenient Truth). From The Sky Down was then selected to open the Toronto International Film Festival on 8 September, the first ever documentary to open the festival in its 36-year history. Twenty years after the 1991 release of Achtung Baby, Davis Guggenheim traces the album's genesis using animation and previously unseen footage from Berlin and Dublin alongside interviews with the band as they reflect on what was a key chapter in their career.
Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, tells for the first time the inside story of how it felt to be condemned to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, and to spend the next decade in hiding. To coincide with the publication of Rushdie's new book about that time, Alan Yentob has been given unique access to the author and to the bodyguards who lived with him. Friends and writers like Ian McEwan and Hanif Kureshi speak frankly, as do Rushdie's sister, ex-wife and sons.
Renowned as the bravura front man of one of Britain's greatest rock bands, Freddie Mercury's life outside Queen is rarely celebrated or explored. In a touching portrait, imagine... charts Mercury's solo projects and interests, including a previously unheard collaboration with Michael Jackson and the triumphant Barcelona project with Dame Montserrat Caballe, as well as the life of a gay man who was not yet publicly out. Rare interviews reveal a shy man in search of love, and a driven artist living behind the protection of his stage persona.
Following in the footsteps of Alan Yentob's 2008 profile of Jay-Z, imagine... presents the much-heralded Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream. With Beyoncé herself in the director's chair, this unique and confessional film combines spectacular showpieces and video diary footage, giving a revealing insight into the life of the 16-time Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, actress, entrepreneur, wife and mother. This is Beyoncé, by Beyoncé.
To mark David Bowie's comeback album and a new exhibition at the V&A, Alan Yentob looks back at his legendary 1975 documentary, Cracked Actor. The film follows Bowie during the Diamond Dogs tour of 1974. Alan Yentob says "I'd caught him at what was an intensely creative time, but it was also physically and emotionally gruelling. Our encounters tended to take place in hotel rooms in the early hours of the morning or in snatched conversations in the back of limousines. He was fragile and exhausted, but also prepared to open up and talk in a way he had never really done before." Cracked Actor has become one of the classic rock documentaries of all time, remaining an enduring influence on generations of Bowie fans.
Arts series. As part of an evening of programmes celebrating the life and work of the playwright and diarist, Simon Gray, who died in 2008. This updated Imagine is a rare insight into one of Britain's foremost playwrights, author of many West End hits, but best known for his work with Harold Pinter, and as the writer of the notorious Cell Mates. This intimate film gives a darkly entertaining account of his childhood experiences and very personal views on addictions to smoking, alcohol and the traumas of modern day life for a writer. By way of tribute, the conclusion to the film is provided by a number of friends, well known actors and writers, reading from Simon Gray's last volume of diaries, CODA.
As part of a tribute night to broadcaster and television executive Alan Yentob, an interview with leading British artist Jenny Saville. One of the most successful figurative painters working today, she came to prominence as part of the YBA movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She has been reluctant to discuss her work for many years on television, until now. Alan Yentob was working with her on a film for Imagine and caught up with her in Vienna on the eve of two major 2025 exhibitions she is mounting. This was the last interview Alan Yentob conducted in a career spanning six decades at the BBC, bringing many of the world’s leading artists and creatives to the screen. Alan also persuaded Jenny to allow cameras into her painting studio for the first time in almost three decades.
Alan Yentob presents a new seven-part series looking at the power and effect of the arts and their main protagonists. The elusive and intriguing Charles Saatchi has been hugely instrumental in shaping contemporary British art. As he launches his new gallery in London's former County Hall, this behind-the-scenes look reveals Saatchi's hands-on involvement in the collection's presentation, helped by partner Nigella Lawson.
A profile of Barbara Hepworth, the world's first internationally celebrated woman sculptor. Born in Yorkshire in 1903, she had to fight to establish herself in a world dominated by men, and could still wield a chisel in her seventies.
More than just a musical genre, hip-hop has become a global youth culture. But why does the voice of young black America resonate equally with British teenagers from city high-rises and suburban semis? Alan Yentob embarks on a journey of discovery, encountering both young UK rappers and big US stars.
Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Moss and Vogue's Anna Wintour contribute to the tale of Stella McCartney's rise from student at St Martins to her big break into the fashion elite. Footage shot by McCartney and dating back to 1985, alongside interviews and archive material, help paint this portrait of the designer.
Alan Yentob tells the inspirational story of Carlos Acosta, the gifted dancer who made the leap from the backstreets of Havana to become the first black principal dancer at the Royal Ballet. The film follows Acosta over six months as he embarks on the biggest challenge of his life - producing and choreographing his own show based on his upbringing in Cuba.
Alan Yentob tells the story of Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of Britain’s first non-white celebrity, Omai, which the Tate Gallery is fighting to keep in Britain. One of the artist’s greatest works, and the first ever grand portrait of a non-white subject, the picture captures the image of a man who became an overnight sensation in 18th-century London after being plucked from obscurity in Tahiti.
In the year that the barrister turned bestselling author turns 80, Alan Yentob talks to family and friends about the man widely regarded as a passionate political campaigner, wit, bon viveur and legendary lothario.
The internationally acclaimed Welsh bass baritone talks to Alan Yentob as the arts strand returns for a new, six-part run. As well as learning more about the technical aspects of Terfel's voice, Yentob watches him perform at the opera - but is he prepared to duet with the maestro?
A look at the process of remaking hit British sitcoms into mediocre US sitcoms.
Born in 1753, Sir John Soane was the first great innovator of British architecture. Though only one of his creations remains intact, his influence resonates to this day. Alan Yentob’s arts strand continues with this drama-documentary - starring Corin Redgrave as Soane and Sam West as his student Wightwick - which tells the remarkable story of Soane's life.
Martin Parr is widely considered to be the most influential photographer of his generation. His work portrays the British way of life in all its idiosyncratic detail - Women’s Institutes, bird-watching, and fish and chips - iconic images that make up a retrospective exhibition currently on a world tour. Alan Yentob takes Parr back to his suburban past to reveal the root of his inspiration.
The success of computer-created films such as Finding Nemo and Shrek has led to another “Golden Age” of animation. But does it spell the end for pencil-drawn animation? Toy Story’s John Lasseter and Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park are among those voicing their opinions.
From the height of the British Empire right up to the digital age, Alan Yentob investigates the bizarre history of the Oxford English Dictionary, helped by poet Benjamin Zephaniah and author Julian Barnes.
The mid 20th-century realist Edward Hopper’s enigmatic depictions of everyday Americana are celebrated for their ambivalence, dealing in not only the prosaic but also existentialist themes of loneliness and alienation - yet despite their popularity, surprisingly little is known about the artist's private life. For the first in a new run of the arts documentary strand, Alan Yentob travels to America to meet biographer Gail Levin and explore his love of cinema, the landscape of Cape Cod, and his complex relationship with wife and muse Jo.
Now in his 80s, British artist Lucian Freud has always been at pains to preserve his privacy. Reasoning that the next best thing to interviewing the artist would be to talk to those with whom he has isolated himself day and night, director Jake Auerbach spent two years filming the often famous subjects of Freud's portraits - and gained an intimate insight into one of Britain's greatest living painters.
Forty years on from the release of the landmark album A Love Supreme, Alan Yentob charts the life of hugely influential jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. Lol Lovett’s film looks at how his improvisational technique impacted not only on jazz but also on other art forms - his innovations have been felt in performance art and even in contemporary dance music - and shows how his profound spirituality entered into every area of his life and work.
With Vernon God Little, his 2003 Booker Prize-winning debut novel, writer and self-confessed conman DBC Pierre, aka Australian-born Peter Finlay, became the most controversial character to win the award. Alan Yentob joins the enigmatic novelist on a road trip across Texas and Mexico, exploring locations central to the book and the house where Pierre grew up, in a bid to find out the truth behind the bizarre stories of serial mendacity and drug addiction.
Is modern children's fiction a dangerously influential portrayal of a degraded culture or an instruction manual for life in the 21st century Along with contributions from authors including Salman Rushdie, Alan Yentob analyses the aptness of material that covers sex, drug taking, racial murder and the death of God.
Playwright and author Simon Gray 's recent autobiography offers a turbulent mixture of memoir and anecdote and charts his addictions to smoking and alcohol. To mark its publication and the opening of his latest play The Old Masters, Alan Yentob presents a rare insight into the 50-year career of one of Britain's foremost dramatists.
The American playwright’s Death of a Salesman and The Crucible were hailed as classics. But his arraignment during the 1950s communist witch-hunts and his marriage to Marilyn Monroe also made headline news. The arts series returns with Miller, now 89, talking to Alan Yentob about his life and career, and also about his latest play, which documents the making of Monroe's last film.
In 1966 Brian Wilson, the creative hub of the Beach Boys, embarked on an ambitious project - an attempt to record the greatest pop album ever. Instead, Wilson descended into a breakdown that lasted for over 30 years. Now, with the record Smile finally on release, the troubled genius talks about the origins of the madness and majesty in his music.
A profile of the US contemporary artist whose sound installation is currently transforming the vast space of Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. The normally publicity-shy Nauman talks in detail about his oeuvre, while fellow artists Damien Hirst, Douglas Gordon and Tony Oursler offer their opinions of his work.
The brooding, raw and groundbreaking performances Marlon Brando gave in such films as A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and The Godfather gave the actor an iconic status, despite his lifelong disdain for acting. Alan Yentob talks to Martin Scorsese , Francis Ford Coppola and Bernardo Bertolucci - as well as the Adler family of New York, with whom he was long associated - to piece together a portrait of a highly complex man.
Will the staging of Wagner’s Ring Cycle provide a fitting climax to Antonio Pappano’s critically acclaimed first year as music director of the Royal Opera House? Alan Yentob follows the Italian conductor as he works on the opera and his many other projects, and charts Pappano’s distinguished musical career.
It begins with the extraordinary story of the technology that made it all possible: steel cage construction and the lift. Elisha Otis’s demonstration of his safety lift was the star turn at the New York Worlds Fair in 1854, run by the great American showman, PT Barnum. This streak of showmanship and element of popular entertainment runs through the New York skyscraper’s golden age.
The skyscraper goes global, as Alan Yentob continues to chart the history of tall buildings, examining the cultural legacy of the tower and the rise of a new super class of sky-high buildings.
There are now more tall buildings in the Far East than in North America – the traditional home of the skyscraper – while China, the world’s largest country and fastest-growing economy, is building cities at a rate unprecedented in the history of mankind.
Alan Yentob explores the magical and mysterious world of the best-selling children's author Roald Dahl to discover what made him such a great storyteller. This intimate portrait has exclusive access to his personal archive and features interviews with members of his immediate family, including his widow, Felicity, his first wife, the actress Patricia Neal, his children Tessa, Theo and Ophelia, and his granddaughter, the model Sophie Dahl
Alan Yentob travels to Mexico to take a closer look at the colourful life of the artist and feminist icon Frida Kahlo, and assess the complex portfolio she left behind. With some of her works sold for over $10m (£5.5m), since she died in 1954 she has become Latin America’s greatest artistic export.
Alan Yentob gets under the lid of this extreme form of musicianship as he talks to Benjamin Grosvenor, the 12-year-old boy who last year won the piano section of the Young Musician of the Year competition. Is someone of such a young age ready to be subjected to this notoriously punishing and athletic musical discipline?
Famous for his cello and violin concertos, it's not widely known that Edward Elgar also wrote sketches for a piano concerto. This often hilarious film shows how the embryonic piece - a performance of which follows - came to life.
Alan Yentob presents a portrait of Israel's most celebrated writer and political commentator, Amos Oz, whose childhood memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness gives an eyewitness account of the birth of Israel. Yentob takes Oz back to the settings of the childhood in Israel and reveals a fascinating portrait of the early years of Israel, the tragic story of Oz's family and his widely respected views on the conflict with Palestine.
As a child, portrait painter Chuck Close was written off as a failure because his dyslexia remained undiagnosed. Then, in 1988, he was partially paralysed by a stroke. Undaunted by these hardships, he continued to paint and his latest work is on display at London's National Portrait Gallery. Alan Yentob meets the American artist in New York.
Can art change lives? Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra believe so - but can they convince 250 underprivileged teenagers from suburban Berlin? The aim is to stage Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, and Royston Maldoom is the British choreographer who must persuade the reluctant youngsters to get their steps up to performance standard.
Could New Orleans's days as a great musical powerhouse be coming to an end? As Alan Yentob traces the city's vast musical heritage, he meets musicians who have lived and worked there all their lives and are determined to return despite the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. With contributions from Paul McCartney, Dr John, Jools Holland and Elvis Costello.
The joy of some collectors at owning what they believed to be genuine Andy Warhol works has been ruined by the artist's authentication board's declaring them fake. They speak of their disillusionment here as Alan Yentob visits New York to investigate acquiring art by the “Pope of Pop”, while Warhol collaborators reveal his unusual working methods.
Critics say the British sitcom is dead by virtue of its middle-aged, middle-class “appeal”. Why then are our finest comic writers and performers making prize-winning shows? As he talks to Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Armando Iannucci, Graham Linehan and Chris Langham - and makes a surprise entrance on My Family - Alan Yentob finds the genre in rude health.
Self-confessed chair addict Alan Yentob encounters a vast range of his objects of desire in this whimsical journey through the changing styles of the modern chair - a furniture item intimately and inextricably intertwined with the physicality of our everyday lives, whose look has been transformed over the centuries by designers such as Le Corbusier and Terence Conran , from hand-crafted descendants of royal thrones to wipe-clean plastic garden chairs.
Famous for his cello and violin concertos, it's not widely known that Edward Elgar also wrote sketches for a piano concerto. This often hilarious film shows how the embryonic piece - a performance of which follows - came to life.
Alan Yentob presents a portrait of Israel's most celebrated writer and political commentator, Amos Oz, whose childhood memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness gives an eyewitness account of the birth of Israel. Yentob takes Oz back to the settings of the childhood in Israel and reveals a fascinating portrait of the early years of Israel, the tragic story of Oz's family and his widely respected views on the conflict with Palestine.
As a child, portrait painter Chuck Close was written off as a failure because his dyslexia remained undiagnosed. Then, in 1988, he was partially paralysed by a stroke. Undaunted by these hardships, he continued to paint and his latest work is on display at London's National Portrait Gallery. Alan Yentob meets the American artist in New York.
Can art change lives? Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra believe so - but can they convince 250 underprivileged teenagers from suburban Berlin? The aim is to stage Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, and Royston Maldoom is the British choreographer who must persuade the reluctant youngsters to get their steps up to performance standard.
Alan Yentob follows Welsh actor Wayne Cater and three other Hamlet hopefuls as they prepare for a Shakespeare role that has become a rite of passage for all who have taken it on. With advice and support from ex-Hamlets Ralph Fiennes, Derek Jacobi, David Warner, Jonathan Pryce and Simon Russell Beale.
Alan Yentob presents a documentary telling the story of Yusuf Islam - the singer/songwriter who captured the hearts of a generation in the 60s and 70s with songs like Moon Shadow and Morning Has Broken under the name Cat Stevens. Yusuf explains that his hit songs were written to help him out of a spiritual depression, and that he shared with his listeners a quest for a deeper meaning to life. After a decade of flirting with religion he finally converted - after a near drowning incident off Malibu beach he promised to serve God if he was saved; he was and it was to the Koran he turned. Now one of Britain's foremost representatives of Islam, founder of a Muslim School paid for by his royalties, he has finally returned to the music he abandoned 23 years ago.
Alan Yentob presents a documentary profiling Thomas Heatherwick, most famous as the creator of the enormous sculpture The B of the Bang in Manchester. Heatherwick has established himself as one of the most exciting and innovative figures in British design. Described as a new Leonardo, he has turned his talents to everything from artworks and architecture to extraordinary feats of engineering and an ingenious handbag.
Alan Yentob presents a profile of painter Howard Hodgkin. Despite being one of Britain's most successful living artists, he doesn't like talking about his work and no one has seen him paint for over 20 years. With a major retrospective coming up at Tate Britain, he travels with Yentob to India, which has been described as his emotional lifeline. They seek out some of the great monuments of the Mogul empire, visit Hodgkin's huge mural in New Delhi, and go in search of the perfect Bombay sunset.
To coincide with the publication of upcoming sequel Peter Pan in Scarlet, Alan Yentob presents a documentary which explores why JM Barrie's character has such lasting power and mythical status and looks at the secret behind its eternal appeal. He goes in search of the real JM Barrie, visiting the remote Scottish island of Eilean Shona, his home town of Kirriemuir near Dundee, Black Lake in Surrey where Barrie played, and Kensington Gardens, where Peter Pan was born.
Imagine presents a portrait of the artist regarded by many as the greatest painter of all time. Court painter to Philip IV of Spain, Velazquez is the artist other painters most admire, and his masterpiece, Las Meninas is considered the high point of European Art - yet he virtually abandoned his art for material gain and social ambition.
Alan Yentob presents a documentary about Jeremy Weller's attempts to get his play The Foolish Young Man ready in time for the reopening of Camden's Roundhouse theatre. His main problem is that he has only one actor, David Harewood, on his team. The rest of the cast is made up of young people from the streets, drop-in centres, those excluded from school and kicked out of home.
Something interesting seems to be happening in American cinema, with a new group of maverick American directors led by Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino having emerged to revitalise Hollywood. They include directors such as Wes Anderson, Alexander Payne and David O Russell. Alan Yentob meets them and asks how they managed to radicalise American cinema with Hollywood backing.
Documentary which tells the stories of five people who spend their days guarding great treasures in museums and galleries. Some have tragic personal stories, and all began not caring or knowing much about art, but they feel that spending their days surrounded by the world's greatest masterpieces has been their salvation.
Hans Holbein, long recognised as the father of British painting, is an artistic enigma, wrapped up in historical myth and nationalist hyperbole. Holbein, so the story goes, was a child prodigy, who famously branded Henry VIII, painted his courtiers and then his brides and spied for his ministers, before ending his life in debt. But how much of this is true? In this film, Alan Yentob goes in search of the real Hans Holbein. It's a detective trail that takes him to Basel in Switzerland, where Holbein spent his early years, as well as across the length and breadth of Britain. Alan employs the tools and science of the detective, beginning with a magnifying glass and ending in the reconstruction of the scene of Holbein's greatest exploit. Holbein's most famous painting The Ambassadors is recreated as a contemporary photograph by the renowned White Cube photographer Tom Hunter.
Alan Yentob is granted an audience in the dressing rooms of some of the great operatic divas of today, from Angela Gheorghiu and Renee Fleming to Kiri Te Kanawa and Frederica von Stade. He explores what it takes to survive and succeed in this ultra-competitive world, for both stars and newcomers, and asks if these singers still need to be divas - in the modern sense of the word - to get to the top in this business.
Alan Yentob journeys into the world wide web to find out how it began, who's out there, and where it's taking us. He meets Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the web, and explores how Lee's creativity has fuelled the creativity of millions of others - such as Dandy blogger Dickon Edwards and sex blogger Abby Lee, the hardcore members of the Arctic Monkeys message board, masked animator David Firth, and Ewan Macdonald, the young Scot who wrote the millionth entry in Wikipedia.
Alan Yentob celebrates the 70th anniversary of the world's first scheduled high-definition television service, by the BBC from Alexandra Palace in 1936. He take some of the pioneering engineers and on-screen talent back to the studios to see what they can remember of TV's early days - from Picture Page to Muffin the Mule to the first news programme and the potter's wheel 'interlude'. Plus, some amazing archive footage and the Queen's 1953 coronation, the event that single-handedly changed how people viewed the fledgling TV service.
Over the last 40 years, British artists Gilbert and George have fascinated, outraged, delighted and confounded the art establishment. Since their first appearance as 'living sculptures' in the late 1960s, their work has persistently taken a provocative, often uncomfortable look at both their own lives and the life of the city that continues to inspire their art - London. Alan is invited into their East End home, where the couple have lived together for four decades, for an intimate look at what is the most unique, productive and long-standing partnership in contemporary art.
Alan Yentob presents a profile of the provocative French-born American artist Louise Bourgeois, who was still producing cutting edge work at the age of 95. Memories of a disturbed childhood have produced fantastic and disturbing sculptures of giant spiders and poured-plastic body parts. As a girl she restored old tapestries, worked with Leger and knew surrealists like Breton and Duchamp. In New York she emerged as an artist in her own right, bringing dread, desire, sex and the psyche into her work.
Alan Yentob tells the story of Scott Walker, who was one of the all time great voices of pop, and then disappeared. This is the story of one of the enigmas of modern music, who has influenced a huge range of artists from David Bowie to Lulu to Radiohead, told through his ever-changing music. Scott Walker has crooned ballads to swooning orchestral accompaniment, and created percussion by thwacking a side of pork. For decades he was a recluse with a reputation for eccentricity, but the music was evolving all the time. Rare exclusive interview material of Walker at work on his latest album is the climax to a story told by a gallery of musicians and producers touched by his music: Brian Eno, Marc Almond, Johnny Marr, Alison Goldfrapp, Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker, and Ute Lemper among them.
Surrealism has been described as one of the most successful revolutions of the 20th century, a revolution in perception that broke down the barriers between the world of dreams and the world of everyday reality. Its influence can be felt everywhere, in design and architecture, fashion and furniture, cinema and advertising. Even so, Surrealism is disdained by most contemporary artists, its ambitions regarded as overblown, its ideas out-moded and its greatest artists, like Magritte and Dali, dismissed as poster-art for teenage bedrooms. In this programme Alan Yentob takes a personal and dream-like journey, from Sigmund Freud's couch, where the story of Surrealism begins, to the current Surreal Things exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Exploring the history of Surrealism and its legacies, he makes the case for the Surrealist conviction that the world is 'an immense museum of strangeness'.
Starting with a look at the latest self-help phenomenon, The Secret, Alan Yentob sets out to learn from the big hitters in the self-help world: Susan Jeffers, author of the bestselling Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway; David Burns, whose book Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy has sold over 5 million copies, and Anthony Robbins, who fills stadiums with his can-do performances. “Most people see things worse than they are so they never have to try,” says Robbins. “People say to me ‘I’m sceptical’ and I say no you’re not, you’re gutless.” Robbins has been the personal coach to a raft of celebrities including Mikhail Gorbachev and Bill Clinton. At last year’s Wimbledon, Serena Williams, another Robbins follower, was spotted with her own self-help notes: “My good thoughts are powerful. Any negative thoughts are weak. You are number one. You are the best. You will win Wimbledon.” “But let’s face it, none of us are going to win Wimbledon,” says Yentob. “And anyway, we keep being told it’s not all about winning, so why do we need these books?” “I think we all have pain,” says Amy Jenkins, writer of This Life and a self-help fan. David Burns, a pioneer of cognitive therapy, challenges pain head on with the idea that “your thoughts create your feelings, so your thoughts can change your feelings.” This is not just a fad; his self-help book on cognitive therapy is now prescribed by doctors around the world instead of antidepressants. Yentob’s optimism is bought crushingly down to earth by the Freudian psychoanalyst Adam Philips. “Freud said the purpose of psychoanalysis is to turn neurotic misery into everyday unhappiness, and what he meant by that is that people aren’t going to be transformed magically.” In search of the roots of the self-help genre, Yentob discovers Self Help by Samuel Smiles, which was published in 1859, the same year as Darwin’s The Origin of Species. “Guess which one was the bestseller?” The next blockbuster was How to Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie, published in 1936, during the Depression. “Now we live in a culture of constant change and turnover,” says the self-help critic Micki McGee. “You not only have to be employed, but constantly employable. Not only married, but constantly marriageable. And that is the moment self-help emerges as a powerful literature.” The episode ends with The Wizard of Oz, the ultimate self-help film. All the characters - the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Lion and Dorothy - think they have to look to the Wizard for the answers; what they eventually realise is they were within themselves all along. So has Yentob been changed by his voyage of discovery? “The truth is there is more to self-help than I thought,” he admits.
Alan Yentob celebrates the 70th anniversary of the world's first scheduled high-definition television service, by the BBC from Alexandra Palace in 1936. He take some of the pioneering engineers and on-screen talent back to the studios to see what they can remember of TV's early days - from Picture Page to Muffin the Mule to the first news programme and the potter's wheel 'interlude'. Plus, some amazing archive footage and the Queen's 1953 coronation, the event that single-handedly changed how people viewed the fledgling TV service.
New series of the documentary strand. Profile of 88-year-old author and winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature, Doris Lessing. Alan Yentob meets Doris to discuss her literary output as well as her work with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. They also talk about her communist beliefs and how they help shape her books.
Investigation into the profound impact music can have on the human brain. Alan Yentob investigates case studies from neurologist Dr Oliver Sacks' latest book Musicophillia, including a man who developed a passion for piano playing after being struck by lightning and a man whose severe Tourettes disappears when he plays the drums
As the popular typeface celebrates its 50th birthday, Imagine screens a shorter version of the witty film by Gary Hustwit about the history of the Swiss-designed “Kate Moss of fonts”.
Alan Yentob presents a profile of the provocative French-born American artist Louise Bourgeois, who was still producing cutting edge work at the age of 95. Memories of a disturbed childhood have produced fantastic and disturbing sculptures of giant spiders and poured-plastic body parts. As a girl she restored old tapestries, worked with Leger and knew surrealists like Breton and Duchamp. In New York she emerged as an artist in her own right, bringing dread, desire, sex and the psyche into her work. Yentob goes to a Sunday salon at her New York home where young artists queue up to get her often fiery reactions to their work. He talks with Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley, Stella Vine and others who have been inspired by this strange and mischievous artist.
Alan Yentob travels to Los Angeles to meet acclaimed director, screenwriter and producer Werner Herzog. The pair discuss Herzog's career to date, including films such as Rescue Dawn, Grizzly Man and Fitzcarraldo - one of several projects that saw him working with eccentric actor Klaus Kinski. They also talk about what the future might hold for a man known to be uncompromising in his search for the truth.
Alan Yentob investigates the appeal of self-help books starting with an examination of the latest bestseller, The Secret.
Alan Yentob traces the career of Richard Rogers, uncovering the influences that have produced some of the greatest landmarks in modern architecture.
The acclaimed industrial designer discusses his inspirations.
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Alan Yentob meets the 88-year-old winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature, with whom he explores the influence of her African upbringing, her extraordinarily varied life, and her lifelong struggle with her mother, with whom she seeks to come to terms in her latest book.
Alan Yentob meets some of the people with strange musical disorders and powers who feature in Dr Oliver Sack 's book Musicophilia, which explores the extraordinary relationship between music and the brain. Among them are Tony Circoria , who developed an instant passion for playing the piano after he was struck by lightning, and Matt Giordano , who alleviates his Tourette syndrome by drumming.
Annie Leibovitz - Life through a Lens. Her photographs are world famous and many of her iconic images are indelibly burned into the public consciousness. But just who is the woman behind the camera, Annie Leibovitz ? This documentary, introduced by Alan Yentob , is a portrayal by the photographer's sister Barbara of an artist whose images are perhaps better known than she is.
This compelling record of the Berlin Philharmonic during a concert tour of Asia proves as much an inner journey as an outer one, as musicans and their conductor Simon Rattle reflect on subjects such as the orchestra's organisation and traditions; its distinctive sound; life on the road; the demands of performance; and the effects of age on technique. As eloquent as these musings are the performances of Richard Strauss 's Ein Heldenleben and Thomas Ades 's Asyla to rapt audiences in Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and beyond.
Alan Yentob takes a jazz-fuelled tour of Japan to discover more about the often surreal work of reclusive bestselling novelist Haruki Murakami. En route, he meets some of the writer's fans and critics, and even a talking cat.
Alan Yentob interviews German film director Werner Herzog , the uncompromising, often visionary director of more than 40 documentary and feature films including Rescue Dawn, Grizzly Man, Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, Wrath of God. Herzog's back catalogue is littered with tales of casts, crews and studios tested to the extremes by his determination to capture the "real truth" on film.
In this special edition, Alan Yentob and an impressive list of contributors celebrate the life and work of the Oscar-winning director of The English Patient and The Talented Mr Ripley, who died aged 54 in March.
The acclaimed industrial designer discusses his inspirations.
Alan Yentob meets the 88-year-old winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature, with whom he explores the influence of her African upbringing, her extraordinarily varied life, and her lifelong struggle with her mother, with whom she seeks to come to terms in her latest book.
Alan Yentob meets some of the people with strange musical disorders and powers who feature in Dr Oliver Sack 's book Musicophilia, which explores the extraordinary relationship between music and the brain. Among them are Tony Circoria , who developed an instant passion for playing the piano after he was struck by lightning, and Matt Giordano , who alleviates his Tourette syndrome by drumming.
Alan Yentob explores the rapid rise of one of modern music's most mercurial talents, Rufus Wainwright. Wainwright talks candidly about his background, his family of musical luminaries - father Loudon Wainwright III, mother Kate McGarrigle and sister Martha Wainwright - his troubled personal history with drugs and the tensions that have informed his music. The film also follows his journey into the classical world as he creates his very first opera, Prima Donna.
This compelling record of the Berlin Philharmonic during a concert tour of Asia proves as much an inner journey as an outer one, as musicans and their conductor Simon Rattle reflect on subjects such as the orchestra's organisation and traditions; its distinctive sound; life on the road; the demands of performance; and the effects of age on technique. As eloquent as these musings are the performances of Richard Strauss 's Ein Heldenleben and Thomas Ades 's Asyla to rapt audiences in Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and beyond.
Alan Yentob takes a jazz-fuelled tour of Japan to discover more about the often surreal work of reclusive bestselling novelist Haruki Murakami. En route, he meets some of the writer's fans and critics, and even a talking cat.
Alan Yentob interviews German film director Werner Herzog, the uncompromising, often visionary director of more than 40 documentary and feature films including Rescue Dawn, Grizzly Man, Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, Wrath of God. Herzog's back catalogue is littered with tales of casts, crews and studios tested to the extremes by his determination to capture the “real truth” on film.
As part of an evening of programmes celebrating the life and work of the playwright and diarist, Simon Gray, who died in 2008. This updated Imagine is a rare insight into one of Britain's foremost playwrights, author of many West End hits, but best known for his work with Harold Pinter, and as the writer of the notorious Cell Mates. This intimate film gives a darkly entertaining account of his childhood experiences and very personal views on addictions to smoking, alcohol and the traumas of modern day life for a writer.
At an age when most people are content to take it easy, one group of pensioners have taken up contemporary dance for the first time. Alan Yentob follows them on their journey as they prepare to perform at Sadler's Wells, one of the top dance venues in the world. Save the Last Dance for Me challenges people's preconceptions about the physical and creative abilities of the over sixties.
Alan Yentob explores the rapid rise of one of modern music's most mercurial talents, Rufus Wainwright. Wainwright talks candidly about his background, his family of musical luminaries - father Loudon Wainwright III, mother Kate McGarrigle and sister Martha Wainwright - his troubled personal history with drugs and the tensions that have informed his music. The film also follows his journey into the classical world as he creates his very first opera, Prima Donna.
In times like these, what is art worth? And what is art for? The big moment for publicly funded art in Britain was the Second World War. "Something absolutely remarkable happened during the war", says actor Simon Callow. "The theatre suddenly was right at the heart of society." After the war, the idea of "art for all" led to the founding of the Arts Council - "very much a response to the distress, the fear, the uncertainty of war." Alan Yentob asks if culture can play that role again today.
Following British-Bangladeshi choreographer Akram Khan as he takes the risk of his life. He has just months to teach Oscar-winning French actress Juliette Binoche to dance. She must also be confident enough to perform with her teacher in front of the National Theatre's discerning audience. Akram, for his part, will attempt to learn to act. Interviewees include Juliette Binoche, Sylvie Guillem, Joseph Fiennes, Antony Gormley, Nitin Sawhney and Anish Kapoor.
Alan Yentob embarks on a three-part personal journey to discover how the guitar became the world's favourite musical instrument. Beginning with the rise of the acoustic guitar, the series takes him from an ancient Middle Eastern ancestor of the lute, to the iconic guitars draped round the necks of Bill Hailey and Elvis Presley and beyond. Featuring interviews with Bert Weedon - the man who taught Britain to 'Play in a Day', Pete Townshend, Bill Bailey, flamenco player Paco Pena and classical guitarist John Williams.
Alan Yentob embarks on a quest to find out what makes a great love story in literature, film or song. Among those offering their help in this labour of love are author Jeffrey Eugenides and lyricist Hal David.
Alan Yentob presents a three-part series examining how the guitar became the world's favourite musical instrument. As the guitar turns electric, music is changed for ever. The world's first electric guitar had nothing to do with jazz or blues, but Hawaiian-style music and was known as the 'frying pan'. Yentob continues his investigation from the blues of the Mississippi to the guitar wars of the 1950s, when the Fender Stratocaster and the Gibson Les Paul were battling for supremacy.
Alan Yentob explores the life and work of Jay-Z, following the rapper over a period of six months.
Alan Yentob meets artists who use light as both the source and inspiration for their work, including American James Turrell.
In the final programme of the series the guitarists talk about how they find their own sound, and how the guitar has changed their lives. Since its invention, the electric guitar has unleashed a seemingly inexhaustible sonic invention among guitarists. Featuring Muse's Matt Bellamy, who turns out to be following in his father's space age footsteps, Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath, who talks about the invention of heavy metal, David Gilmour from Pink Floyd, Pete Townshend (Perhaps equally famous for smashing guitars), Johnny Marr from the Smiths on 'the mother of all riffs', Slash and The Edge from U2 among many others.
The Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, which caused a sensation at last year's Proms, is the product of an extraordinary music education system that has been running for more than 30 years. Children as young as two get intensive music lessons designed to steer them away from the dangers of the street. With Scotland now trying its own version of the scheme, Alan Yentob investigates the phenomenon and meets its most successful graduate, 27-year-old conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who next year becomes music director of the LA Philharmonic.
Sculptor and giant of modern art Richard Serra discusses his extraordinary life and work. A creator of enormous, immediately identifiable steel sculptures that both terrify and mesmerise, Serra believes that each viewer creates the sculpture for themselves by being within it. To this end, a Japanese family are reminded of the Temples of Kyoto, a Londoner finds sanctuary in the Serra near Liverpool Street station, and most movingly, a Holocaust survivor sees one piece as a wall separating the living from the dead.
Rock doc Heavy Metal in Baghdad follows the struggles of Iraq's one and only metal band, Acrassicauda, and tells its own story about the horror of daily life in the war-torn city. Following the documentary's limited cinema release Imagine presents an edited down version of that film, then picks up the story as the four band members have fled Iraq and are attempting to re-form their band in the West. Lost in a nightmare of bureaucracy, the four young musicians hold onto their dream, which is simply to play their music.
At an age when most people are content to take it easy, one group of pensioners have taken up contemporary dance for the first time. Alan Yentob follows them on their journey as they prepare to perform at Sadler's Wells, one of the top dance venues in the world. Save the Last Dance for Me challenges people's preconceptions about the physical and creative abilities of the over sixties.
Filmed over three years with unprecedented access, this documentary captures the return from California of England's favourite living artist. As Hockney approaches the age of 70, he re-invents his painting from scratch, working through the seasons and in all weathers out in the Yorkshire countryside, ending up with the largest picture ever made outdoors. It is at once the story of an unusual homecoming and also an intimate portrait of what inspires Hockney as his time runs out.
Alan Yentob explores the rapid rise of one of modern music's most mercurial talents, Rufus Wainwright. Wainwright talks candidly about his background, his family of musical luminaries (father Loudon Wainwright III, mother Kate McGarrigle and sister Martha Wainwright), his troubled personal history with drugs and the tensions that have informed his music. The film also follows his journey into the classical world as he creates his very first opera, Prima Donna.
William Eggleston is one of the most influential and original photographers alive today. A Mississippi aristocrat with a fondness for guns, drink and women, he dragged colour into the world of art photography. Reviled in the 1970s, he is now considered a legend whose unique visual style has influenced generations of photographers and filmmakers. Imagine shows the normally shy and elusive Eggleston at work - taking photographs on the road, in and around his home town of Memphis.
The Great Depression and the Second World War changed what was expected of the arts; Alan Yentob asks if this recession could see the next transformation. Artist Chuck Close talks about the New Deal in America in the 30s, when the government paid artists to work, while actor Simon Callow tells how thrilled actors were to feel their work mattered. And dealer Kenny Schachter explains how, in a perverse way, he feels this recession is the best thing that has happened to the art world in ten years.
In times like these, what is art worth? And what is art for? The big moment for publicly funded art in Britain was the Second World War. "Something absolutely remarkable happened during the war", says actor Simon Callow. "The theatre suddenly was right at the heart of society." After the war, the idea of "art for all" led to the founding of the Arts Council - "very much a response to the distress, the fear, the uncertainty of war." Alan Yentob asks if culture can play that role again today.
Anish Kapoor is one of the most influential sculptors of his generation, known for works of staggering complexity and scale. He now faces his biggest challenge yet as the first living British artist to have a solo show occupying the entire Royal Academy gallery. His response is a series of audacious installations. With exclusive access to his studio, Alan Yentob follows him through a period of intense productivity. Kapoor talks candidly about his childhood in India, his early years as an artist and his creative process. An insight into one of Britain's most accomplished and popular sculptors.
Alan Yentob gains an insight into the creative world of Dame Shirley Bassey in a programme first shown in 2009. After a triumphant Glastonbury appearance and a major illness at the age of 72, Dame Shirley tentatively re-enters the ring to confront her life in song. Some of the best contemporary songwriters, including Gary Barlow, the Pet Shop Boys, Manic Street Preachers, Rufus Wainwright, Richard Hawley and KT Tunstall, along with James Bond composer John Barry and lyricist Don Black, have interpreted her life through song for an album produced by David Arnold. The songs frame and explore the myth of Shirley Bassey, the girl from Tiger Bay, and the voice and the desire are not found wanting. A backstory profiling Shirley, complete with archive of her greatest performances, tells the story of what makes her the living legend that she is today.
There is a new breed of art collector on the block. No longer do you need to be fabulously wealthy to afford a Blake, a Banksy or a Hockney over your fireplace. Imagine meets a variety of people who are part of a small revolution in the art world. A factory worker, a pig farmer and a policeman are just some of those whose lives have been changed by an Arts Council scheme called Own Art, which has enabled them to take out an interest free loan to buy contemporary artwork.
The American singer-songwriter Joan Baez talks, more candidly then ever, about her personal life and a career spanning 50 years. Political ally to Martin Luther King, lover to Bob Dylan, she was the most admired and desired performer of her generation, using her unique voice to get her message of peace and racial equality heard around the world. Baez tells about her unconventional upbringing with Quaker parents, her near-breakdown due to stage fright, and her complicated relationships with lover Dylan, husband David Harris and son Gabe. Admirers David Crosby, Steve Earle, Bob Dylan and Jesse Jackson talk about her uncontested status as Queen of Folk and tireless champion for human rights.
He has performed in 3,400 performances in over 130 roles, conducted upwards of 450 performances, and is general director of both the Washington National and Los Angeles Operas. Placido Domingo is at the peak of opera, and now at the age of 68, he has embarked on a role he has long dreamed of performing - Simon Boccanegra - his first as baritone in an opera. Exploring with him his astonishing career as a tenor leading up to this moment, the film looks back at his most famous opera roles and examines how Domingo won BBC Music Magazine's title of Greatest Singer in History.
Scrabble is experiencing a renaissance. The younger generation have rediscovered the game online - through the copyright busting Scrabulous - and they're having night after night on the tiles. LANA BOTNEY sets out to discover why the word game leaves us spellbound, tracing its surprising history, meeting the American tournament Word Freaks, and paying a visit to the SAS-style training camp that the Nigerian government trains their players at. With triple word score contributions from Moby, Richard Herring, Lynn Barber and Noreena Hertz.
Alan Yentob takes an epic train ride through Tolstoy's Russia, examining how Russia's great novelist became her great troublemaker. In this programme, he reveals a difficult and troubled youth, obsessed with sex and gambling, who turned writer while serving as a soldier in Chechnya and the Crimea. His experiences on the frontline eventually fed into War and Peace, a book now recognised as, 'the gold standard by which all other novels are judged'. They also triggered his conversion to outspoken pacifist. Alan's expedition takes him to the Tatar city of Kazan, where Tolstoy was a teenager, the siege of Sevastopol on the Black Sea and Imperial St Petersburg, as well as the idyllic Tolstoy country estate, the writer's cradle and grave, and home throughout his passionate but brutal 48-year marriage to Sofya - a marriage that began with rape, produced 13 children and ended with desertion and denial. Contributors include Tolstoy's great great grandson Vladimir Tolstoy, AN Wilson and author of a new Tolstoy biography, Rosamund Bartlett.
Alan Yentob continues his train ride through Tolstoy's Russia, examining how Russia's great novelist became her great troublemaker. The success of War and Peace brought Tolstoy fame, wealth and a massive mid-life crisis. Alan follows the writer through the tortured second half of his life as he transformed himself from aristocrat to anarchist and turned his back on his novels, his possessions and finally his wife of 48 years. Alan travels east into the remote emptiness of the Russian steppe, through the dark, pages of Tolstoy's great romantic novel, Anna Karenina, on to the small town where Anna takes her life, and then on the pilgrimage to the spectacular monastery where Tolstoy's spiritual quest began. Using extraordinary early film of Tolstoy, we witness the tumultuous events of Tolstoy's final years and his passionate relationship with his disciple Chertkov, the man his wife called "the devil incarnate". Finally, Alan retraces Tolstoy's flight from home at the age of 82, a journey that ended in a remote railway station. Heartbreaking archive footage shows his wife Sofya being turned away from the deathbed of her husband. So great was Tolstoy's influence at the time of his death that the government feared the news would spark revolution. Contributors include leading Russian commentators, as well as AN Wilson and the author of a new Tolstoy biography, Rosamund Bartlett.
Presenter Alan Yentob meets clinical neurologist and author Dr Oliver Sacks to investigate the myriad ways we experience the visual world and the strange things that can happen when our mind fails to understand what our eyes see. In the course of this investigation, Yentob tells the life story of Dr Oliver Sacks, the man who would become one of the world's most famous scientists. Alan delves into this world by going to meet several of the case studies from Sacks latest book, The Mind's Eye. He meets Stereo Sue, neurobiologist Sue Barry, who always saw the world as a flat 2D image until she suddenly acquired stereoscopic 3D vision in her late forties; Canadian crime writer Howard Engel, the man who forgot how to read, who remarkably continues to write despite a stroke that destroyed his reading ability; Chuck Close, the renowned portrait artist, who cannot recognise or remember faces and Danny Delcambre, an extraordinary and spirited man who, although having a condition which means he was born deaf and is gradually going blind, lives life to the full and uses close-up photography to record the world around him. Often overlapping with these case studies is Sacks' own story. Here, doctor and patient combine as he talks about his childhood, his own struggle with face blindness, and the loss he felt when eye cancer recently destroyed his 3D vision.
Alan Yentob visits Egypt's National Museum, possibly the most precious museum in the world, with its dust-covered collection of thousands upon thousands of priceless ancient antiquities. The museum was caught up in the revolution on Cairo's Tahrir Square, standing right at the centre of the action. Its precious cargo was looted, and young revolutionaries formed a cordon around it to protect it. The museum is the heart of Egypt, containing the key not just to the country's past but to its future, offering inspiration and hope. Alan discovers that the pharaohs were not the slave-drivers of Hollywood legend, and that 4,000 years ago there was another revolution, foreshadowing today's, and even a goddess of social justice. With Omar Sharif and novelist Ahdaf Soueif.
In September 1971, two years after the Beatles split up, John Lennon, dispirited and disillusioned with life in England, escaped across the Atlantic to New York City. He was tired of the constant scrutiny and criticism at home, and hated the venomous press hounding him and Yoko Ono. He dreamt of starting a peaceful new life in a city he'd come to love. Instead what followed was more like a rollercoaster ride: a tempestuous period in his relationship, a battle against the US immigration authorities, and a famous wild spell: the 'lost weekend'. Michael Epstein's fascinating film, featuring previously unseen archive footage and unprecedentedly candid interviews with key figures including Yoko Ono, charts this little-known period of Lennon's life - the years leading up to his untimely death.
Alan Yentob introduces John Scheinfeld's documentary Harry Nilsson - The Missing Beatle, a film that tells the story of the riotous life and music of Harry Nilsson. Nilsson, a friend and hero of Lennon's, was one of the most successful and influential, but least known, songwriters of his generation. He is remembered as much for his wild lifestyle as for his outstanding performance of Everybody's Talkin' from the movie soundtrack Midnight Cowboy.
Iraq and art are not words that usually go together. Yet this year, for the first time since Saddam Hussein's rise to power some 35 years ago, Iraq has a presence at the Venice Biennale - the show that is the Cannes Film Festival or the Olympics of the international art world calendar. Thousands of years ago, Iraq was the cradle of civilisation - Mesopotamia, the 'land between two rivers' - the Garden of Eden. Decades of despotism, destruction and despair have stifled its art, but now, despite all the dangers and difficulties, art is re-emerging. Jill Nicholls' film tells the moving stories of six Iraqi artists, all scattered around the world, and follows them as they prepare their work for Venice. The artists include Halim Al Karim, who survived for three years in a hole in the desert, escaping conscription into the Iran Iraq war; as well as Walid Siti, dreaming of the mountains of Kurdistan in his East London studio and going back to Iraq to gather images for his work.
Imagine presents a feature-length documentary about the making of U2's seminal album Achtung Baby. Early in 2011, U2 returned to Hansa Studio in Berlin to discuss the making of Achtung Baby in this film directed by Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim (It Might Get Loud, Waiting for Superman, An Inconvenient Truth). From The Sky Down was then selected to open the Toronto International Film Festival on 8 September, the first ever documentary to open the festival in its 36-year history. Twenty years after the 1991 release of Achtung Baby, Davis Guggenheim traces the album's genesis using animation and previously unseen footage from Berlin and Dublin alongside interviews with the band as they reflect on what was a key chapter in their career. 'In the terrain of rock bands - implosion or explosion is seemingly inevitable. U2 has defied the gravitational pull towards destruction... this band has endured and thrived. From The Sky Down asks the question why.' Davis Guggenheim.
Artist Grayson Perry has been working behind the scenes at the British Museum to stage his most ambitious show yet: The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman. Given free rein to choose whatever he wants from the Museum's vast collections, Perry has also produced some 25 new works of art, from his trademark ceramics to a working motorbike. Imagine follows Perry for more than two years as he creates his own imaginary civilisation at the heart of the British Museum.
In Jennifer Lebeau's film, Simon and Garfunkel: The Harmony Game, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel talk openly and eloquently about an extraordinarily creative period in their career - the making of Bridge Over Troubled Water. The story behind what was to become their final album has long been shrouded in rock and roll mythology and is told in gripping detail in these rare interviews. Archive footage is used to reveal technical breakthroughs and the emotional feelings the two artists had for each other.
Sir Alan Ayckbourn is often described as the world's most performed living playwright. Yet it is his popularity that has often led to him being overlooked as a serious dramatist in the UK. As he premieres his 75th play in his seaside theatre in Scarborough, Imagine sets out to discover why Ayckbourn is so popular, and a chorus of distinguished fans explain why he must be recognised as one of the great dramatists of our time.
Vidal Sassoon is more than a hairdresser - he created styles that defined a generation. Craig Teper's film charts the career of the man who invented the bob-cut and, over the course of more than fifty years, created one of the most recognisable brands in the beauty business.
The arts series takes a road trip round the desert state of Rajasthan, meeting musicians whose existence is under threat from the new India. They meet Bhopa bards who recite four-night-long epics in front of huge hand-painted scrolls, saffron-clad, chillum-smoking sisters, cross-dressers and gypsy dancers who literally bend over backwards to pick up rupees.
With the rise of electronic books, is the final chapter about to be written in the long love story between books and their readers? Will the app take the place of the traditional book? Alan Yentob discusses the subject with writers Alan Bennett, Douglas Coupland, Ewan Morrison and Gary Shteyngart, publisher Gail Rebuck, agent Ed Victor and librarian Rachael Morrison. They also smell books, making precise notes about the distinctive aroma of each.
Alan talks to comedians both in Britain and America, finding out their about different backgrounds and influences and their passion for making people laugh.
The second of a two-part series for Imagine on the art of stand-up comedy. Alan Yentob talks to comedians in Britain and America, exploring the evolution of stand-up and how it transfers to other mediums. He also joins Eddie Izzard backstage for the first solo stand-up show at the Hollywood Bowl.
From rehearsal room to triumphant performance, imagine... follows the extraordinary theatrical production of The Two Worlds of Charlie F. Professional front line soldiers, all of whom have sustained injury ranging from amputation to post traumatic stress, join forces with a professional theatre company to help write, rehearse and perform a play based on their experiences of war in the killing fields of Afghanistan. What happened when they swapped the theatre of war for the London stage?
Paul Simon's Graceland album is one of his greatest achievements - a brilliant fusion of African rhythms and western pop which became a global phenomenon. It also proved hugely controversial, as Simon broke the UN-backed cultural boycott of a country still under the grip of apartheid. Joe Berlinger's film captures Simon's return to South Africa 25 years on and contrasts the value of individual artistic expression versus collective political action as instruments of change. Did Paul Simon's unique collaboration with South Africa's township musicians set back the clock of South African liberation or drive it forward?
From the Beach Boys to Queen and Jeff Buckley, falsetto singing has a long and distinguished presence in all types of music, one that continues to fascinate and enthral audiences. Alan Yentob delves into the world of falsetto singing, the high-pitched vocal range sung by men that comes closer to the female voice, and discovers why falsetto can express emotions that could not otherwise be achieved. With contributors including Frankie Valli, Brian May, Philip Bailey from Earth, Wind and Fire and Harrow School Chapel Choir, imagine... asks why men are compelled to sing in such a voice.
imagine... explores the story of a group of artists and curators who stormed the international art world and turned their home city of Glasgow into a global capital for contemporary art. Amongst the artists Alan Yentob encounters are 2011 Turner Prize-winner Martin Boyce, as well as previous winners Douglas Gordon, Simon Starling and Richard Wright, to tell the story of a city now as famed for its contemporary art as it was for its shipbuilding.
With three of Titian's mythological paintings of the goddess Diana being shown together for the first time at the National Gallery, Alan is behind the scenes of a collaboration with the Royal Ballet. He talks to the creative team transforming the works into contemporary dance.
The show follows Ian Rankin’s creative process, beginning in December 2011 with a trawl through hisnotes, newspaper clippings and story ideas scribbled on the back of napkins. It also features intimate video diary footage as we see him wrestle with his demons and various unfolding plots.
Britain's most successful crime writer, Ian Rankin, invites imagine... to get up close and personal and follow him as he writes his next novel. Maverick cop DI John Rebus propelled Rankin to fame as an author, but having retired his most famous creation five years ago, Rankin is now faced with a dilemma: what will he write about next? Through Rankin's own video diary footage, we see him wrestle with his demons and numerous unfolding plots. Will they lead to a dead end? Alan Yentob and imagine... were there on the first day of writing and on the very day Ian Rankin finished the novel. Tune in to find out the result.
From child prodigy to global phenomenon, Alan Yentob reveals the extraordinary life of Lang Lang, China's classical music superstar. With sell-out concerts around the world and a growing popularity that reaches far beyond traditional classical audiences, Lang Lang has redefined the idea of the celebrity concert pianist. His ability to connect with a younger generation has played a significant role in inspiring over 40 million Chinese children to take up the piano. In this feature-length documentary, imagine... explores the compelling personal story behind the Lang Lang phenomenon.
The pianist performs Chopin and Beethoven at Latitude, Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall.
William Klein has lived many lives. One of the world's most influential photographers, he pioneered the art of street photography and created some of the most iconic fashion images of the 20th century. He also made over twenty films, including the first ever documentary about Muhammad Ali and a brilliant satire of the fashion world, Who Are You Polly Magoo? With a major Tate Modern exhibition currently celebrating his work, imagine... spends time with William Klein to discover the irrepressible, charismatic personality behind a remarkable creative life.
Many people turn to music when words are not enough, at funerals and weddings, at times of heartbreak and euphoria. It seems to hold more emotion and go deeper than words. Musicians as varied as Emeli Sande, who enthralled the world when she sang at the Olympics, opera diva Jessye Norman, dubstep artist Mala and modern classical composer George Benjamin explain how music makes them feel. Alan Yentob also talks to a vicar, a psychologist, a Hollywood composer, an adman and even the people who choose the music played in shopping malls. He sees babies dance to a rhythm, and old people brought forth out of silence by the power of music.
Nearly 30 years after her triumphant debut novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson returns with Alan Yentob to the scene of her childhood in Lancashire. She was adopted and brought up to be a missionary by the larger-than-life Mrs Winterson, but Jeanette followed a different path - she found literature, fell in love with a girl and escaped to university. Following her recent memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, she tells the story of her recent breakdown and suicide attempt, her quest to find her birth mother and how the power of books helped her to survive.
Matthew Bourne is Britain's most commercially successful choreographer. A virtuoso storyteller, he famously reimagined the traditional Swan Lake ballet with muscular male swans, instantly creating a worldwide hit. Now he is reinterpreting Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty. imagine... and Alan Yentob have exclusive access to the creative process, from first workshops to final rehearsals with set and costumes, and the programme revisits Bourne's many ground-breaking shows to chart his inexorable rise.
The incredible story of a mysterious nanny who died in 2009 leaving behind a secret hoard - thousands of stunning photographs. Never seen in her lifetime, they were found by chance in a Chicago storage locker and auctioned off cheaply. Now Vivian Maier has gone viral, and her magical pictures sell for thousands of dollars. Vivian was a tough street photographer, a secret poet of suburbia. In life, she was a recluse, a hoarder, spinning tall tales about her French roots. Presented by Alan Yentob, the film includes stories from those who knew her and those who revealed her astonishing work.
imagine... presents McCullin, a powerful documentary portrait of legendary British war photographer and photojournalist Don McCullin. Told through a series of searingly honest and often graphic interviews, McCullin recounts a life lived in the theatre of war - from his first assignment with the violent teenage gangs on his home turf of Finsbury Park, to capturing international conflicts of the past 50 years. The film lays bare McCullin's disgust for the destruction of human life, juxtaposed with the adrenaline rush of a life spent under enemy fire.
From beatnik to mod, from folkie to disco tart, from glam rocker to, most recently, crooner of American standards, Rod Stewart has had a remarkable musical journey. Alan Yentob visits Rod at his homes in Beverly Hills and Essex and talks to his friends and family, including all eight children aged from two years old to 50. Featuring rare archival footage of Rod when he was barely out of his teens and living above his parents' north London sweetshop, lmagine examines an entertaining career across five musical decades.
imagine... presents Robert B Weide's intimate two-part study of the multi-Oscar winning New York auteur. In this first part, Woody Allen talks candidly about his childhood in Brooklyn, his early fame as a stand-up in New York City and his first forays into screenwriting and filmmaking. He discusses his prolific body of work, which includes some of the most memorable cinematic moments of all time. With unprecedented access to the director, Weide reveals the man behind the trademark glasses.
imagine... presents the second part of Robert B Weide's intimate profile of Woody Allen. The New York writer, director and actor doesn't shy away from discussing his sometimes controversial relationships with the leading ladies in his life, or the hits and misses of an unparalleled body of work spanning five decades of filmmaking. Contributors including Martin Scorsese, Diane Keaton, Scarlett Johansson and John Cusack join Allen's family of filmmakers for a unique insight into one of the most obsessive and enduring directors of all time.
Alan Yentob profiles the most successful female architect there has ever been, Zaha Hadid, who has designed buildings around the globe - everywhere from Austria to Azerbaijan.
In just four years, Jimi Hendrix revolutionised the music scene with his transcendent sound and explosive stage presence. A peacock, poet and perfectionist, he was a true original, who restlessly pushed his musical gifts to their extremes. imagine... tells the story of how this shy, former private in the 101st Airborne became the greatest rock guitarist of all time, using never-before-seen performance footage, home movies and family letters. With contributions from the Hendrix family, Sir Paul McCartney, and former band mates Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, imagine... presents an in-depth look at Hendrix's life and career that was tragically cut short at just 27 years old in 1970.
Edmund de Waal is the bestselling author of The Hare With The Amber Eyes, a family memoir that captured the hearts of millions. But he isn't just a writer; from the age of five he has been making thousands and thousands of pots. After 45 years, he is exhibiting his work for the first time in America and researching his next book, a globe-spanning journey through porcelain. imagine... follows Edmund over a remarkable year.
For generations of Jewish songwriters, the bright lights of Broadway have been a catalyst for transformation. New York's musical theatres offered a chance for those who had fled persecution and oppression to make it big in America. On Broadway, the idea of outsiders beating the odds could be dramatised in a uniquely American art form, with melodies derived from Jewish prayers inspiring catchy new songs that tens of millions around the world would come to embrace. imagine... looks at the unique role Jews have played in creating the modern American musical, from Porgy and Bess to West Side Story and Cabaret. Featuring performances by Broadway's most creative talents, plus a medley of amazing archive footage and interviews, the film explores the work of some of America's pre-eminent musical maestros - including Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Kurt Weill, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Jule Styne.
After the huge success of recent shows in Venice, London and Paris, interest in Outsider Art has never been higher. But what exactly is it? How do we define it? And who are its gurus and leading lights? Alan Yentob explores this captivating, compelling and magical alternative art universe. Why in 2013 is Outsider Art finally being feted by the art establishment, and what took it so long? imagine... embarks on a worldwide journey to meet some visionary creators, and their equally obsessive collectors and enthusiasts.
Imagine tells the extraordinary story of Judith Kerr, creator of some of our best-loved children's books; including Mog and The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Born in Berlin, at the age of nine she was forced to flee Germany as her father, a writer, was an outspoken opponent of the Nazis. Her children's novel 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit' tells their story and is now a set text in German schools. In memory of Judith Kerr, who died earlier this year, we look back to Judith’s 90th Birthday in 2013 as she revisits Berlin with Alan Yentob, and takes tea in the London kitchen to which that tiger came. Featuring Lauren Child, Michael Morpurgo and Michael Rosen.
With performances from Peter Capaldi, imagine... marks the 500th anniversary of Machiavelli's notorious book The Prince. Famous for lines like 'It is better to be feared than loved', The Prince has been a manual for tyrants from Napoleon to Stalin. But how relevant is The Prince today, and who are the 21st century Machiavellians? Alan Yentob talks to contributors including Colonel Tim Collins, who kept a copy of The Prince with him in Iraq; plus Hilary Devey, Alastair Campbell and Game of Thrones writer George RR Martin.
As Brazil prepares to host the Fifa World Cup this summer and the Olympic Games in 2016, imagine... explores the cultural and social history of the city of Rio de Janeiro, home to more than six million Carioca. A city of extremes, Rio is still seen by many as a tropical paradise, but it is also a city divided by class, ravaged by poverty and gun crime. With its roots and rhythms in samba, the music of Rio has directly influenced decades of social and cultural change. imagine... journeys through an extraordinary city, illustrated and narrated by the music and voices of this Brazilian metropolis.
After Portnoy's Complaint launched him as a new literary voice, not to mention a scandalous one, Philip Roth went on to be hailed by many as America's greatest living writer. Never afraid to look hard at the extremes of human experience, he has been both consistently controversial and intensely private. But now, having celebrated his 80th birthday in his home town of Newark, New Jersey, Roth, in conversation with Alan Yentob, is ready to tell the whole story in this special two-part film for imagine... Philip Roth Unleashed.
Alan Yentob talks to Philip Roth in the second half of a two-part film. After his scandalous debut with Portnoy's Complaint, and the intensely personal novels of his early career, Philip Roth turned this same fearless vision to some of the great themes of the American century - civil rights, McCarthyism, the Vietnam war - as his characters become impaled on history. In a career spanning six decades Roth became one of the most controversial and influential writers of the modern age, and only now, with the advent of his 80th birthday, is he ready to reveal all.
The five surviving members of Monty Python have spent the last 20 years dismissing a reunion as 'absolutely impossible'. Now, it seems, they've changed their minds... In this special edition of imagine... Alan Yentob follows Cleese, Palin, Jones, Gilliam and Idle (collective age 357) as they pursue solo projects in far-flung locations, reflect on old age, and prepare for the shows in London that will bring the final curtain down on Python after 45 years.
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On a train crossing from Switzerland to Germany, an old man was searched by customs officials. They found 9,000 euros in cash. Their suspicions started a journey back in time, to a hoard of art hidden since the Third Reich. It has reignited passions that seemed long spent. These were not old masters but new - works the Nazis labelled 'degenerate', like the Jews themselves. They tried to wipe out both. The father of the old man on the train was a dealer for the Nazis, selling these works abroad and keeping some for himself. In a two-part special, imagine... follows both his story and those of the families who have been fighting to find their lost art.
imagine... tells how the end of the war was only the beginning of another battle. In the art world in Germany, it was business as usual. Many people in museums, galleries and auction houses in Germany remained in their positions when the war was over. So people involved in looting art might now be in charge of deciding whether to return it. For families, often living in exile, it was an uphill struggle. For them the discovery of the Gurlitt hoard has raised new hopes - and repeated some old disappointments.
For five decades the woman they call The Divine Miss M has forged a path which has taken her from a pineapple canning factory in Honolulu to becoming a Hollywood legend. Alan Yentob joins Bette Midler on a journey through the chorus lines of Broadway, the bathhouses and nightclubs of the 1970s, to the very top of the film industry. Her combination of a soulful voice and the raucous wit of Mae West has made her name as an outrageous, but always captivating, all-round entertainer.
There is no-one quite like Anselm Kiefer. Having achieved fame and notoriety in equal measure in the 1980s, he has become one of the world's most singular and successful artists. Working with themes of history, memory and mythology, Kiefer produces work that is consistently controversial, and monumental in its scale and ambition. In this imagine... Alan Yentob joins the artist at his studios in France and Germany as he prepares for a retrospective at the Royal Academy. In a series of frank interviews set against the backdrop of his awe-inspiring studios, Kiefer discusses the impact of his most significant pieces, installs a selection of new work, and explains why he is as excited and driven by his practice now, at the age of 69, as he was when he began.
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.
In this thoughtful, lyrical film, Imagine talks to the acclaimed and curiously divided Irish writer Colm Toibin. Loud and affable in person, Toibin writes sombre stories of grief and quiet heartbreak, repeatedly returning to the dark narrative of his own childhood and the complicated relationships between mothers and sons. In the year that his bestselling novel Brooklyn is being adapted for the cinema and The Testament of Mary continues to provoke controversy, Toibin publishes his most poignant and personal novel yet. With Fiona Shaw, Anne Enright and Nick Hornby.
imagine... presents this UK television debut of a tour de force from the Divine Miss M. Bette Midler returned to the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas in 2010 for this all-singing, all-dancing revue, which featured many of her colourful and classic characters. She performs many of her biggest hits including The Rose, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, From a Distance and Wind Beneath My Wings.
lan Yentob charts the career of choreographer Matthew Bourne, and takes an exclusive look at preparations for his reinterpretation of Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty.
Arts documentary. Alan Yentob reveals how Chinese artist Ai Weiwei continues to fight for artistic freedom of expression.
Arts documentary. Leon Gast follows the world's first paparazzi photographer, Ron Galella, as he revisits his old haunts and recalls his encounters with the stars.
A portrait of the pioneering forefather of cinema Eadweard Muybridge, whose work astounded audiences worldwide.
Bruce Springsteen describes his attempts to create a sequel to one of the most popular albums of all time.
Alan Yentob learns what links Radio 4 soap The Archers with Ben-Hur, one of the most epic Hollywood blockbusters of all time.
Alan Yentob meets Ray Davies, the creative powerhouse behind The Kinks and author of some of the best-loved songs of the 60s, who candidly discusses the vicissitudes of his career.
The story of how a shy, former private in the 101st Airborne - Jimi Hendrix - became the greatest rock guitarist of all time, using never-before-seen performance footage.
Documentary following bestselling author Edmund de Waal over the course of a remarkable year, as he exhibits his pottery work for the first time and researches his next book.
Alan Yentob looks at the unique role Jews have played in creating the modern American musical, from Porgy and Bess to West Side Story and Cabaret.
Alan Yentob explores outsider art, examines why the oeuvre is only now being accepted by the art establishment and meets some visionary outside art creators and their enthusiasts.
Documentary telling the story of Judith Kerr, creator of well-loved children's books including Mog and The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Now 90, she revisits her childhood home of Berlin.
Marking the 500th anniversary of Machiavelli's book The Prince, which has been a manual for tyrants from Napoleon to Stalin. Featuring performances from Peter Capaldi.
As Brazil prepares to host the Fifa World Cup this summer and the Olympic Games in 2016, imagine... explores the cultural and social history of the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Hailed by many as America's greatest living writer, Philip Roth, in conversation with Alan Yentob, is ready to tell the whole story in this special two-part film.
Alan Yentob talks to author Philip Roth about his exploration of some of the great themes of the American century, including civil rights, McCarthyism and the Vietnam war.
Alan Yentob meets the five surviving members of Monty Python - John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle - as they prepare to reunite on stage.
Two-part special documentary telling the story of a hoard of art that was hidden during the Third Reich as it was deemed 'degenerate' by the Nazis.
Second episode of a two-part special documentary about a secret hoard of art discovered in Germany. The rightful owners begin the uphill struggle of reclaiming their property.
Alan Yentob joins Bette Midler on a journey through the chorus lines of Broadway and the bathhouses and nightclubs of the 1970s to the very top of the film industry.
imagine... presents this UK television debut of a tour de force from the Divine Miss M. Bette Midler performs many of her biggest hits including The Rose and Wind Beneath My Wings.
Alan Yentob joins Anselm Kiefer at his studios in France and Germany as he prepares for a retrospective at the Royal Academy.
Director Mike Leigh talks to Alan Yentob about his unique body of work and struggle to make films on his own terms. Actors he has worked with discuss his distinctive methods.
Alan Yentob talks to acclaimed and curiously divided Irish writer Colm Toibin. Loud and affable in person, Toibin writes sombre stories of grief and quiet heartbreak.
Alan Yentob explores the colourful career of architect Frank Gehry, one of the world's most celebrated and famously provocative creative forces.
As Jeff Koons' first retrospective takes over the Whitney Museum in New York and the Pompidou in Paris, imagine... asks what lies beneath the shiny surfaces.
Jay Bulger catches up with the irascible Cream drummer Ginger Baker at his ranch in South Africa. He reflects on his sixty-year career that led him to sellout stadium concerts.
Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, America's first lady of literature, talks to Alan Yentob about her life and work. Contributors include Angela Davis and singer Jessye Norman.
2014 Man Booker Prize winner Richard Flanagan journeys with Alan Yentob through his native Tasmania, visiting the places that have inspired his novels.
Alan Yentob travels to the ghetto in Venice with award-winning novelist Howard Jacobson as he embarks on a retelling of Shakespeare's most performed play, The Merchant of Venice.
Alan Yentob meets sculptor Antony Gormley, creator of the iconic Angel of the North, and uncovers the influences that have shaped his life and work.
Imagine meets those involved with the stage production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and discovers how it has transformed the public's perception of autism.
The story of British theatre and film producer Michael White who has produced over 300 shows including hits such as A Chorus Line, Sleuth and The Rocky Horror Show.
Julien Temple updates the remarkable story of Dr Feelgood musician Wilko Johnson. Reflecting on his impending death, Johnson muses on the transformative power of mortality.
Alan Yentob talks to British architect David Chipperfield about his breakthrough in Berlin, his love of the city and the 11 years spent on the transformation of the Neues Museum.
Imagine follows Cuban ballet superstar Carlos Acosta as he masterminds a new production of Carmen for the Royal Ballet before embarking on a series of new projects in Cuba.
Alan Yentob tells the story of London's Olympic Opening Ceremony as seen through the eyes of its artistic director Danny Boyle and his creative team.
Alan Yentob follows sculptor Cornelia Parker's creative process in a film that sees her delve deep into America's history, cinema and art, as well as her own personal past.
Thirty years after her death, to coincide with a major Tate Modern show, imagine... tells the story of Georgia O'Keeffe, one of the most inspiring artists ever.
Sir Rod Stewart has had a remarkable musical journey. Alan Yentob visits Rod at his homes and examines an entertaining career across five decades.
Alan Yentob accompanies novelist Marlon James back to James's home country of Jamaica and finds in his novels a complex portrait of the turbulent history of his native country.
Alan Yentob joins South African artist William Kentridge as he prepares an epic frieze along the banks of the River Tiber in Rome.
Alan Yentob explores the enthralling world of female crime fiction in the company of some of its best-selling authors, including Patricia Cornwell, Val McDermid and Paula Hawkins.
Maurizio Cattelan's work has bordered on criminal activity and regularly defies good taste. Maura Axelrod's film builds a compelling and intimate portrait of an enigmatic figure.
Andrew Lloyd Webber has reigned over musical theatre for nearly five decades with hit shows like Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love and, most recently, School of Rock the Musical.
The author Nawal El Saadawi was a global legend. imagine... visited her in Cairo and travels with her to the village where she was born.
Documentary celebrating the life and work of activist, poet and writer Maya Angelou, using film captured just before she died in 2014.
A portrait of a remarkable American artist. Alice Neel was an extraordinary and prolific figurative painter, and yet she spent most of her life working in obscurity.
Alan Yentob follows the celebrated Turner Prize-winning British artist Chris Ofili as he creates a spectacular contemporary tapestry - The Caged Bird's Song.
An unflinching and uncompromising portrait of one of the most controversial photographers.
Alan Yentob meets acclaimed writer Margaret Atwood in Toronto and discovers how a childhood spent between the Canadian wilderness and the city helped shape her.
Alan Yentob meets Cameron Mackintosh to discover how he became the most successful man in the musical theatre business and changed the face of musical theatre across the globe.
A profile of English artist Rachel Whiteread. Alan Yentob visits Rachel in her studio and revisits her most acclaimed and controversial work, House.
With the aid of the BBC archive, Alan Yentob and Mel Brooks embark on an unpredictable journey through the city of stars, meeting the legendary Carl Reiner along the way.
Alan Yentob spends time with Philip Pullman in Oxford, discovering how the ex-teacher became an acclaimed author of fantasy fiction and an outspoken critic of organised religion.
Documentary exploring Ingrid Bergman's journey from Swedish schoolgirl to Hollywood icon, using her archives of home movie footage, private diaries and letters.
Alan Yentob talks to Andrew Lloyd Webber about his autobiography, bohemian childhood and the memories he has chosen to reveal.
Two-part film capturing the mood of Havana and its people, the Habaneros, at a pivotal moment in time. They share their experience of life in this extraordinary city.
he citizens of Cuba tell how the young revolutionaries of the 60s put their dreams into practice and set about building a brave new socialist world on America's doorstep.
The story of Rupert Everett's ten-year quest to write, direct and star in his own film about the tragic last years of his hero Oscar Wilde.
Turkey's best-known writer, the Nobel Prize-winning Orhan Pamuk, glories in his city of Istanbul, showing Alan Yentob the places which have inspired his work.
Alan Yentob meets Rose Wylie and delves into her curious and colourful world to discover how her memories and experiences have helped mould the artist that she is today.
Alan Yentob joins Tacita Dean in her studio in Berlin to discover how the city has infused her work, and visits her in LA where she is completing a film inspired by her sister.
David Hockney undertakes a commission to design and install a stained-glass window in Westminster Abbey to commemorate the sixty-fifth year of Queen Elizabeth II's reign.
The programme tracks the creation of celebrated composer Sir George Benjamin's latest opera Lessons in Love and Violence, which premiered at the Royal Opera House this year.
Artist Tracey Emin talks to Alan Yentob about her life, from her troubled early years in Margate to a series of breakthroughs in the 1990s. Show more
A revealing insight into the life of Hollywood icon Cary Grant, featuring excerpts from his unpublished autobiography and newly discovered footage shot by Grant himself.
Andrea Levy's novel Small Island about the Windrush generation captured imaginations. imagine... finds out if the new adaptation of her book The Long Song follows suit.
Alan Yentob follows celebrated young British playwright James Graham, whose award-winning works take audiences to the very heart of key political events.
Alan Yentob looks into the life of comedian Jo Brand, marking a diverse career which began in 1980s stand-up comedy and has moved through writing, performing and presenting.
Charting the career of Bill Viola over 12 years, following him as he creates a permanent video installation for St Paul's Cathedral.
Alan Yentob meets Irish novelist Edna O’Brien to discuss sex, books and a lifetime of defiance.
Alan Yentob meets Harlem-born artist, author and activist Faith Ringgold as she prepares for her London show at the Serpentine Gallery.
Documentary following Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and his studio in the run-up to his landmark exhibition, In Real Life, at Tate Modern.
Following a ground-breaking arts intervention programme designed to change the course of the lives of young people from two east London estates.
Arts series. Alan Yentob explores the colourful career of architect Frank Gehry, one of the world's most celebrated and famously provocative creative forces.
As Jeff Koons’ first retrospective takes over the Whitney Museum in New York and the Pompidou in Paris, imagine… asks what lies beneath the shiny surfaces.
Jay Bulger catches up with the irascible Cream drummer Ginger Baker at his ranch in South Africa. He reflects on his sixty-year career that led him to sellout stadium concerts.
Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, America's first lady of literature, talks to Alan Yentob about her life and work. Contributors include Angela Davis and singer Jessye Norman.
2014 Man Booker Prize winner Richard Flanagan journeys with Alan Yentob through his native Tasmania, visiting the places that have inspired his novels.
Performance artist Marina Abramovic invites Alan Yentob into her home, opens her archive, travels to her birthplace in Belgrade and talks about turning her life into art.
Alan Yentob travels to the ghetto in Venice with award-winning novelist Howard Jacobson as he embarks on a retelling of Shakespeare's most performed play, The Merchant of Venice.
Alan Yentob meets sculptor Antony Gormley, creator of the iconic Angel of the North, and uncovers the influences that have shaped his life and work.
Imagine meets those involved with the stage production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and discovers how it has transformed the public's perception of autism.
The story of British theatre and film producer Michael White who has produced over 300 shows including hits such as A Chorus Line, Sleuth and The Rocky Horror Show.
Julien Temple updates the remarkable story of Dr Feelgood musician Wilko Johnson. Reflecting on his impending death, Johnson muses on the transformative power of mortality.
Alan Yentob talks to British architect David Chipperfield about his breakthrough in Berlin, his love of the city and the 11 years spent on the transformation of the Neues Museum.
Imagine follows Cuban ballet superstar Carlos Acosta as he masterminds a new production of Carmen for the Royal Ballet before embarking on a series of new projects in Cuba.
Alan Yentob tells the story of London's Olympic Opening Ceremony, as seen through the eyes of its artistic director Danny Boyle, his creative team and just some of the thousands of volunteers who worked to make it happen. The documentary relates how they united in the face of a cynical nation and produced a warm-up act like no other.
Alan Yentob follows sculptor Cornelia Parker's creative process in a film that sees her delve deep into America's history, cinema and art, as well as her own personal past.
Thirty years after her death, to coincide with a major Tate Modern show, imagine... tells the story of Georgia O'Keeffe, one of the most inspiring artists ever.
Sir Rod Stewart has had a remarkable musical journey. Alan Yentob visits Rod at his homes and examines an entertaining career across five decades.
Alan Yentob meets virtuoso multi-instrumentalist, singer and arranger Jacob Collier, and hears from musicians Jacob has collaborated with, including Stormzy, Chris Martin and Hans Zimmer.
As she prepares to publish her long-awaited autobiography, former children's laureate Malorie Blackman discusses the key moments in her life that made her a writer.
Alan Yentob follows acclaimed artist Sonia Boyce as she prepares to make history as the first black woman to represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale.
Alan Yentob meets Douglas Stuart, the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel Shuggie Bain, which was based on Stuart’s own troubled upbringing amid poverty and addiction in 1980s Glasgow.
A look at the work of South African artist William Kentridge who first became well known for making hand-drawn animations featuring a pair of alter egos, set in the urban-industrial landscape of Johannesburg. His first film in the series is Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris (1989). The work reflects the oppressive world of the Apartheid era and South Africa's painful transition into a multiracial democracy and was created over many months as Kentridge painstakingly filmed and erased the drawings frame by frame.
A look at the work of South African artist William Kentridge who first became well known for making hand-drawn animations featuring a pair of alter egos, set in the urban-industrial landscape of Johannesburg. Felix in Exile (1994) reflects the increasing political violence and civil unrest in South Africa as Apartheid came to an end.
imagine... profiles the UK’s most successful double act of the last 40 years, French & Saunders, exploring a brand of comedy based on satire, silliness and, above all, friendship.
Featuring exclusive access to their recent tour and their new album, this documentary reveals the fascinating world of Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe.
Alan Yentob accompanies novelist Marlon James back to James's home country of Jamaica and finds in his novels a complex portrait of the turbulent history of his native country.
Alan Yentob joins South African artist William Kentridge as he prepares an epic frieze along the banks of the River Tiber in Rome.
Alan Yentob explores the enthralling world of female crime fiction in the company of some of its best-selling authors, including Patricia Cornwell, Val McDermid and Paula Hawkins.
Maurizio Cattelan's work has bordered on criminal activity and regularly defies good taste. Maura Axelrod's film builds a compelling and intimate portrait of an enigmatic figure.
An emotive and vivid portrayal of a man and actor who was by turns tremendously talented, tenacious and tormented. Featuring Marlon Brando's own audio tapes and home movie footage.
The author Nawal El Saadawi was a global legend. First shown in 2017 when she was 85, imagine... visited her in Cairo and travels with her to the village where she was born.
Documentary portrait of the trail-blazing activist, poet and writer Maya Angelou. Born in 1928, she enthused generations with her bold and inspirational championing of the African American experience that pushed boundaries and redefined the way people think about race and culture.
A portrait of a remarkable artist. American painter Alice Neel was an extraordinary and prolific figurative painter, and yet she spent most of her life working in obscurity.
Alan Yentob follows the celebrated Turner Prize-winning British artist Chris Ofili as he creates a spectacular contemporary tapestry - The Caged Bird's Song.
An unflinching and uncompromising portrait of one of the most controversial photographers.
Alan Yentob meets acclaimed writer Margaret Atwood in Toronto and discovers how a childhood spent between the Canadian wilderness and the city helped shape her.
Alan Yentob meets musical prodigy Alma Deutscher. Aged 11, she is staging her first full-length opera, Cinderella. Composer, pianist, violinist... Alma learned to read music before she could read words. She began playing the piano aged two and at four years old she was composing her own music.
Sir Cameron Mackintosh was once a theatre stagehand on Drury Lane and is now a musical theatre impresario, with a career spanning 50 years and a catalogue of musical theatre hits to his name - including Cats, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon - and he is now about to launch the US hit musical Hamilton in London.
An intimate portrait of British sculptor Rachel Whiteread as she unpacks her life's work for a major retrospective at Tate Britain in London. Her work explores themes of memory and absence, casting sculptural forms from familiar domestic objects small and large, from sinks and hot water bottles to living rooms - and a terraced house.
At the age of 91, Mel Brooks is unstoppable, with his musical Young Frankenstein opening to great critical acclaim in London in late 2017. Alan Yentob visits Mel at home in Hollywood, at work and at play.
Romantic, fearless, fantastical; this edition delves into the thrilling world of Philip Pullman and explores the author's own dark materials.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest actresses of the 20th century, Ingrid Bergman's talent was matched only by her incandescent screen presence. From her infamous performance as Ilsa in Casablanca, to her work with directors Alfred Hitchcock and Roberto Rossellini, her performances won her Oscars, Emmys and Golden Globes, as well as a place in Hollywood history.
Andrew Lloyd Webber has reigned over musical theatre for nearly five decades and delighted millions worldwide with hit shows like Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love and, most recently, School of Rock the Musical.
Raul Castro has recently stepped down as president of Cuba, almost 60 years after his brother Fidel and a small band of bearded cigar-smoking guerrillas entered the capital Havana and changed the lives of their people forever.
Almost sixty years on, Castro's Cuban revolution continues to split world opinion as decisively as it did when that small band of bearded guerrillas first entered Havana.
The story of Rupert Everett's ten-year quest to write, direct and star in his own film about the tragic last years of his hero Oscar Wilde.
Turkey's best-known writer, the Nobel Prize-winning Orhan Pamuk, glories in his city of Istanbul, showing Alan Yentob the places which have inspired his work.
Alan Yentob meets Rose Wylie and delves into her curious and colourful world to discover how her memories and experiences have helped mould the artist that she is today.
Alan Yentob joins Tacita Dean in her studio in Berlin to discover how the city has infused her work, and visits her in LA where she is completing a film inspired by her sister.
David Hockney undertakes a commission to design and install a stained-glass window in Westminster Abbey to commemorate the sixty-fifth year of Queen Elizabeth II's reign.
Tracking the creation of celebrated composer Sir George Benjamin's latest opera Lessons in Love and Violence, which premiered at the Royal Opera House this year.
Artist Tracey Emin talks to Alan Yentob about her life, from her troubled early years in Margate to a series of breakthroughs in the 1990s.
A revealing insight into the life of Hollywood icon Cary Grant, featuring excerpts from his unpublished autobiography and newly discovered footage shot by Grant himself.
Andrea Levy's novel Small Island about the Windrush generation captured imaginations. imagine... finds out if the new adaptation of her book The Long Song follows suit.
Alan Yentob follows celebrated young British playwright James Graham, whose award-winning works take audiences to the very heart of key political events.
Alan Yentob looks into the life of comedian Jo Brand, marking a diverse career which began in 1980s stand-up comedy and has moved through writing, performing and presenting.
Charting the career of Bill Viola over 12 years, following him as he creates a permanent video installation for St Paul's Cathedral.
Alan Yentob meets Irish novelist Edna O’Brien to discuss sex, books and a lifetime of defiance.
Alan Yentob meets Harlem-born artist, author and activist Faith Ringgold as she prepares for her London show at the Serpentine Gallery.
Documentary following Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and his studio in the run-up to his landmark exhibition, In Real Life, at Tate Modern.
Following a ground-breaking arts intervention programme designed to change the course of the lives of young people from two east London estates.
Remote cameras capture a lockdown concert performed by the Kanneh-Mason family from their home in Nottingham, with interviews with the seven musically gifted siblings.
Following the publication of his new memoir My Name Is Why, writer Lemn Sissay tells Alan Yentob what it was like to grow up as the only black child in a sleepy market town outside Wigan in the 1970s.
Alan Yentob meets choreographer and director Kate Prince as her ZooNation dance company embarks on a new West End production, Message in a Bottle.
As the Young Vic celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, Alan Yentob meets its current artistic director, playwright and actor, Kwame Kwei-Armah, to discuss his life and career.
Performance artist Marina Abramovic invites Alan Yentob into her home, opens her archive, travels to her birthplace in Belgrade and talks about turning her life into art.
Alan Yentob meets Lenny Henry as he publishes a first volume of autobiography, charting his early years in show business.
Alan Yentob explores the huge ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the UK's pioneering and world-renowned performing arts industry.
Alan Yentob explores the remarkable life and work of the trailblazing Anglo-Nigerian writer Bernardine Evaristo, author of the Booker Prize-winning novel Girl, Woman, Other.
Playwright Tom Stoppard tells Alan Yentob the extraordinary story of his life and his latest play, Leopoldstadt, in which he faces up to the pain and loss in his past.
A revealing profile of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, as he publishes his much-anticipated new book, Klara and the Sun.
Alan Yentob meets Marian Keyes to explore her incredible journey from hard-partying waitress to best-selling author and everything she's learned about life, love and storytelling.
Alan Yentob presents a film exploring the life and work of the Ivor Novello Award-winning black British singer-songwriter Labi Siffre.
Alan Yentob profiles groundbreaking dance pioneer Wayne McGregor, the resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet, charting his ascent from childhood in 1970s Stockport.
Following the release of her autobiography, This Much Is True, actress Miriam Margolyes opens up to Alan Yentob about her career highs and her most vulnerable moments.
Presenter Alan Yentob gains unique access to the extraordinary world of astonishing musician Jacob Collier. This 20-something year-old has managed to outdo the Beatles by winning Grammy Awards for each of his first four albums. As a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist, singer, and arranger, we meet the musicians Jacob has collaborated with including Stormzy, Chris Martin, and film composer Hans Zimmer.
Alan Yentob follows one of Britain’s best-loved writers: Malorie Blackman, former Children’s Laureate and the first children’s writer to win the prestigious Pen Pinter Prize. Bold, provocative and challenging, her books have plunged children’s literature into previously uncharted waters: her tragic reverse-racism novel Noughts and Crosses challenged assumptions and declared her a writer like no other. As she prepares to publish her long-awaited autobiography, Malorie discusses the key moments in her life that made her a writer.
Alan Yentob follows acclaimed artist Sonia Boyce as she prepares to make history as the first black woman to represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale.
Alan Yentob meets Douglas Stuart, the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel Shuggie Bain, which was based on Stuart’s own troubled upbringing amid poverty and addiction in 1980s Glasgow.
imagine… profiles Stephen Frears, acclaimed film director of Dangerous Liaisons and The Queen. Some say he’s grumpy, others that he’s mischievous. What drives this 81-year-old?
imagine... tells the story of Aviva Studios, Manchester’s colossal new cultural venue, and goes behind the scenes at the world premiere of its opening production, Free Your Mind.
imagine... follows celebrated British TV writer Russell T Davies as he prepares to return as the showrunner of Doctor Who – with two Doctors and bigger ambitions.
imagine... profiles the UK’s most successful double act of the last 40 years, French & Saunders, exploring a brand of comedy based on satire, silliness and, above all, friendship.
Watch Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe - unguarded, poignant and hilarious.
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