Arena

1975 – 2024
Returning Series
Documentary
~1h 30m / ep
3 seasons
7.2/10

Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. Voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has run since 1 October 1975 with over five hundred episodes made, directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alan Yentob, Roly Keating, Frederick Baker, Volker Schlondorff and Vikram Jayanti. Arena's subjects are a roll-call of the world's best known cultural figures from the 20th and 21st centuries, from singers Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse to academics Edward Said and Eric Hobsbawm, from writers Jean Genet and V S Naipaul to artists Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.

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Latest: Season 1 · 1975

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E1. Theatre
Oct 1, 1975
Premiere. Ronald Eyre reviews what's going on in the theatre, Kenneth Tynan talks to Laurence Olivier about Lilian Baylis and The Old Vic, and a film about David Hockney's sets for The Rake's Progress.
E2. Art and Design
Oct 8, 1975
George Melly looks at how they sold the 70's and a report on the opening of the Space Studios.
E3. Theatre
Oct 15, 1975
An interview with Howard Barker, author of 'Stripwell', and an extract from same; commentary by Kenneth Tynan; and an investigation of 'Birds of Paradise'.
E4. Art and Design
Oct 22, 1975
Cartoonist Mel Caiman on the New Yorker magazine and its artists, Richard Hamilton at the Serpentine Gallery, and a new documentary exhibition from Jarrow.
E5. Theatre
Oct 29, 1975 · 90m
Peter Hall talks about the history and new South Band location of the National Theater, where he is artistic director.
E6. Art and Design
Nov 5, 1975 · 90m
Features Observer critic William Feaver on Painting the End of the World, Bill Brandt's selection of landscape photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the best of science fiction illustration.