Original title
Tempo
Released
10/15/1961
Origin country
GB
Genre
Talk
Production companies
ABC Weekend Television
Status
Ended
Number of seasons
7
Number of episodes
83
A long-running ITV arts and culture series that aired from 1961 to 1968, Tempo was a landmark British television programme dedicated to the performing and visual arts. With a flexible magazine format and an open editorial remit, the series explored cinema, music, dance, photography, literature, theatre, and contemporary cultural life. Combining intellectual ambition with accessible presentation, Tempo established a model for serious arts broadcasting on commercial television and laid the groundwork for later landmark programmes such as Aquarius and The South Bank Show.
A specially commissioned film by Orson Welles examines bullfighting. Meanwhile, writer Truman Capote discusses the death of fiction.
A look at modern architecture in Britain including interviews with the critic Iain Nairn and the architects Frederick Gibberd and Hubert Bennett.
Tempo visits France for a film about the abstract artist Graham Sutherland who is seen at work in his studio.
The author of the James Bond books, Ian Fleming, talks to Dan Farson.
An attempt to explore the television technique in relation to modern ballet.
How artists bring terror into their pictures.
Mods and Rockers is a dance created by Peter Darrell for the Western Theatre Ballet based on the music of the Beatles.
The Great Shakespeare Exhibition at Stratford-upon-Avon takes you back to 23 April 1564, the day of the poet's birth.
Songs, recitations, and Victorian melodrama are used for a series of vignettes on aspects of crime. From the righteous to the romantic and ultimately, the repellent.
A profile of the American blues singer Odetta.
A profile on Russian-American singer Sophie Tucker.
The South African cast of the 'Wait a Minim' theatre show bring their sparkle and zest for life to the small screen.
A behind the scenes look at a production of the musical Maggie May.
Looking back on the past year since John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Tempo visits the booming film title making industry, where some have said that the titles are now a lot more interesting than the films they introduce.
Playwright Harold Pinter talks about his background and influences in a documentary that also includes extracts from The Homecoming with the original Aldwych Theatre cast.
Contrasting the professional life of Welsh pop singer Tom Jones who shot to fame last year with Canadian-born modern ballet dancer Lynne Seymour who performs with the Royal Ballet Company.
An interview with actor/comedian Zero Mostel on the set of 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum'.
The evolution of London's community of street musicians.
A profile of jazz musician Duke Ellington.
An interview with French comedian and director Jacques Tati on the set of his latest film 'Playtime'.
At EMI Studios in London, Tempo films the pianist Stan Tracey as he works on a new jazz suite interpretation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
A look at satirical magazines 'Krokodil' (USSR), 'Le Canard Enchaine' (France) and 'Private Eye' (UK).
Awards presented by the Design and Art Directors Association.
"Is music just a sound? Is a truck passing by music? Are sounds just sounds or are they Beethoven? Is there such a thing as silence?" John Cage, composer.
The old idea of a fixed, unchanging world has been thrown out. In today's world of information, can the artist provide a crucial early warning system of coming changes?
Nostalgia is.. Good..? Bad..? Is life today too hectic and rushed? Does nostalgia close one's eye to the present?
An attempt to explain and visualise the experience of a person undergoing an LSD trip. The film uses repetition and changes to audio and visual perception via avant garde techniques.
Michael Hordern stars as the exiled Prospero, who lives on a desolate island with his daughter Miranda. When his usurping brother Antonio sails by, Prospero uses magic to conjure a storm that wrecks the ship and torments the survivors, including the King of Naples and Antonio, thus changing all of their lives.
A discussion on expendability.
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