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Cartoonist Mel Caiman on the New Yorker magazine and its artists, Richard Hamilton at the Serpentine Gallery, and a new documentary exhibition from Jarrow.

Peter Hall talks about the history and new South Band location of the National Theater, where he is artistic director.

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.

Extract from a contemporary play and Kenneth Tynan opines.

Shirley Conran is the guest columnist; fashion photographer Barry Lategan is filmed working; and Victorian painter Edward Burne-Jones' London exhibition.

Deborah Norton reviews British stage events, a play extract, and Kenneth Tynan opines about the theatre.

Guest columnist Terry Measham; a look into the work of painter and poet Charles Tomlinson.

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova rehearse for a BBC New Year Gala Performance; Kenneth Tynan draws a portrait of Albert Finney.

Filmmaker Roger Graef and journalist Simon Jenkins discuss the destruction of historical buildings, in light of a recent SAVE campaign report and the conclusion of the European Architectural Heritage Year.

Deborah Norton returns with reports, interviews and extracts from what is liveliest and best in the British theatrical scene.

Jonathan Miller introduces this week's look at what is most stimulating and enjoyable on the theatrical scene.

A look at American photographer Paul Strand and recent trends in British photography.

Arena goes to Scarborough for the British premiere of a new Alan Ayckbourn play "Just Between Ourselves".

Arena looks at aspects of community art and the work of painter Keith Grant, artist-in-residence at the New Charing Cross Hospital.

Claire Bloom and Kenneth Tynan discuss extracts from Samuel Beckett's 'Happy Days', George Bernard Shaw's 'Too True to be Good', and Tennessee Williams' 'Sweet Bird of Youth'.

Arena talks with Robert Janz and Dante Leonelli about incorporating time into sculpture.

Arena brings extracts from Paris' contemporary theatre season, including Frank Wedekind's 'Lulu' and Marguerite Duras' 'Days in the Tree', and an interview with Delphine Seyrig.

Arena presents the work of British and American video artists.

Barbara Jefford, Laurence Olivier, Joan Plowright, Kenneth Tynan Billie Whitelaw and many of the people behind the scenes say goodbye to the Old Vic building.

Liverpool poet and painter Adrian Henry visits 'The Face of Merseyside'; Boyd and Evans use photographs as the basis of their explorations of everyday life.

Alumni of the Royal Court celebrate its 20th anniversary.

Barrie Penrose investigates a multi-national art empire and the artists and methods that created it.

Features Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Galina Visnevskaya in the Scottish Opera's production of Macbeth, The Kantor Theatre Company from Poland, and Fenella Fielding in a late-night revue.

Features the La Mama Theatre Company from New York; Bunraku, traditional Japanese Puppet Theatre; a recital by Frederica Von Stade; and Judith Blegen as Susanna in 'The Marriage of Figaro'.

Writer Germaine Greer and her god-daughter Ruby take a look at a child's Edinburgh Festival and some of the fringe activities, including Gruppo Teatro Libero from Rome and Quentin Crisp.

A look at the opening of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.

Gavin Miller interviews the director Robert Altman on "M*A*S*H", "Nashville", "Buffalo Bill and the Indians" and more.

David Gould, the expert who discovered Tom Keating's Samuel Palmer imitations, shows the process of identifying and analyzing suspected pictures.

Gavin Millar talks with Frank Westmore, whose family has dominated the make-up departments of American cinema for decades.

Peter Shaffer, writer of 'Equus', talks about his plays, his life and the theatre with an excerpt from the 1976 stage production of 'Equus'.

Gavin Millar interviews director Eric Rohmer about 'Die Marquise von O', 'Claire's Knee' and 'Love in the Afternoon'.

British illustrators Mick Brownfield and Allan Manham are documented working on their current projects; Artist Chris Orr probes the dreadful truth behind the net curtains of suburbia.

Don Siegel, director of 'The Shootist', 'Charley Varrick', 'Coogan's Bluff', 'Dirty Harry' and many other violent thrillers talks about the problems of the director who is typecast by his success in one specialized genre.

A look at Theatre National Populaire, one of France's leading theaters, and Patrice Chéreau's 'La Dispute' by Marivaux and Roger Planchon's 'Tartuffe', as well as scene's from Planchon's scenes from his Blues, Whites and Reds.

In light of the low proportion of British films in the 20th London Film Festival, Gavin Millar looks at what's wrong with the British film industry and distribution system.

Sculpture for the Blind - a special Tate Gallery exhibition; Linda Benedict-Jones, photographer; James Boswell - a revival of his war pictures.

Arena speaks with Spanish directors at the Madrid premiere of 'The Long Vacation of 36'.

20th anniversary tribute to Bertolt Brecht at Newcastle's University Theatre with scenes from 'The Good Woman of Setzuan' and prose, poetry and music.

A look at the Disney exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum; an interview with 'The Ritz' director Dick Lester and actress Rita Moreno; an excerpt from Buster Keaton's 'Spite Marriage'; and the results of the Titles Competition.

Gavin Millar talks to Mel Brooks just before the London release of 'Silent Movie'.

An introduction to the magical world of wood-sculptor Sam Smith, plus a look at one of this month's major exhibitions.

Gavin Miller talks to director Martin Ritt, writer Walter Bernstein, and actors Woody Allen and Zero Mostel about 'The Front'

An interview with Stewart Parker about his new musical 'Spokesong' with excerpt; a profile of 81 year old actor Richard Goolden with scenes from 'Toad of Toad Hall' and Tom Stoppard's 'Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land'.

A fortnightly look at the big screen at home and abroad. News, views and interviews presented by Gavin Millar.

Ralph Steadman illustrates a children's anti-war story, caricatures at his local pub, and speaks about his drawing techniques and his work, including Alice, and impressions of the Patty Hearst trial and the Watergate hearings.

Gavin Miller discusses 'Network' with director Sidney Lumet and Robert Kee; Alberto Cavalcanti talks about his film career on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

Peter Stein, director of Die Schaubuhne theatre co-operative, comes to London with his Shakespeare Project. Includes extracts from 'Summerfolk' and 'Shakespeare's Memory'.

Gavin Millar talks to New Yorker critic Pauline Kael about Costa-Gavras' 'Z' and 'Section Speciale', along with her passion for the movies and how she wields her power.

Arena investigates holograms and their potential in the arts; artist Kit Williams' vivid folklore paintings.

On the occasion of the release of the third film version of 'A Star is Born', James Mason talks about the curious business of stardom and how it has changed.

Arena visits three theatres - the Mercury Theater in Colchester, the Humberside Theatre in Hull, and the Duke's Playhouse in Lancaster - to find out what they are doing, how they are doing it and why they think they should go on doing it.

A look at Ealing Studios, including excerpts of many of their popular films.

Portrait painter Philip Sutton; Helmut Weissenborn, a German WWI soldier who illustrated with wood engravings the war diary of Edward Thomas, an English poet who died in WWI; and Gothic art in Cologne.

In a special edition from Rome, Gavin Millar interviews Bernardo Bertolucci, director of 'Last Tango in Paris' and '1900', and Gore Vidal on Hollywood and 'Cinecitta'.

Prospect Theatre Company reopens the Old Vic. Includes rehearsal footage from 'St Joan', 'Hamlet', 'Antony and Cleopatra', and 'War Music', a new musical adaptation of 'The Iliad' by Christopher Logue.

Gavin Millar talks to director Bernardo Berolucci in Rome about '1900', his new five and a half hour film, as well as his earlier work.

The artist Ian Breakwall gave up painting for the art of a daily diary; Jim Dine explains why he returned from pop art to drawing the human figure.

Arena looks at erotic films, including 'Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus', 'Hardcore', and 'Come Play With Me'.

An interview with Sophia Loren on the occasion of the opening of 'The Cassandra Crossing'.

Mr Universe, the Crazy Horse Girls de Paris, Yum Yum Shaw, superstars with police escorts, topless bathing beauties-the Cannes Film Festival still sometimes seems more like a circus than a trade fair. But for all that, film people find it an indispensable fortnight in their calendar. More buying, selling and setting up of movies takes place in the jostling corridors of the Carlton Hotel in the last two weeks of May than anywhere else the rest of the year. A report on the business and the ballyhoo.

Features the 1977 Edinburgh International Festival with a new production of Carmen, the experimental shows, Film Festival, Television Festival, and art galleries.

with Gavin Millar returns for a new season after a visit to Hollywood, which despite rumours of slump and panic is still the unquestioned capital of the cinema world. We talked to one of its ruling princes, John Franken heimer, director of The Manchurian Candidate and Grand Prix, about his career in the Dream Factory, and especially his latest suspense thriller Black Sunday.

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen talk about the filming of 'Annie Hall' and their long friendship.

In the 17th century Troilus and Cressida was censored and in the 18th century Tate gave King Lear a happy ending. The programme debates the line between interpretation and vandalism.

Star Wars - the biggest and fastest money-maker in the history of the movies - has opened in Britain at last. What on earth - or in heaven - has caused the phenomenal success of this galactic romp-cum-morality tale? Gavin Millar talks to the producer Gary Kurtz , the designer John Barry and to Mark Hamill who plays the young hero Luke Sky-walker.

George Melly explores his lifelong relationship with surrealism in all its forms and prominent personalities; Henry Moore discusses Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings.

But please, this is a farce! ' The story of The Cherry Orchard CHEKHOV: '... It hasn't turned out a drama but as a comedy, in places even a farce.' STANISLAVSKY: ' ... I wept like a woman, I tried to control myself but I could not. I hear you say, " but please, this is a farce! " No, for the ordinary person, this is a tragedy.' With the advent of two major new productions of The Cherry Orchard, at the National Theatre and Riverside Studios, Arena: Theatre addresses itself to the recurring debate about Chekhov the ' comic' dramatist.

A British film The Duellists starring Keith Carradine , Harvey Keitel and Albert Finney won the Special Jury Award at Cannes last year and it opened in London last week. It is a finely photographed period film set in the beautiful Dordogne but the most admirable thing about it may be that it is as faithful an adaptation of Conrad as any the screen has seen - and there have been many, from a 1926 silent version of Nostromo to Richard Brooks 's Lord Jim and Hitchcock's Sabotage.

A tribute to the British filmmaker Alan Clarke (1935-1990).

Hooray for Hollywood? Gavin Millar talks to: Christopher Isherwood has been a Hollywood immigrant for 40 years and loved every minute of bis screenwriting career there. 'Thank goodness I had the sense to realise I wasn't the great genius prostituting myself.* Neil Simon (The' Goodbye Girl, The Cheap Detective) is a New York playwright who has chosen to live now in Hollywood. David Puttnam is the young English producer (Midnight Express) who has been in Hollywood only two years and is coming home. 'Leaving Los Angeles is Mke giving up heroin.'

A new British film has its Royal Premiere tomorrow. It is an English period film and vividly demonstrates the high production values, quality and talent available in this country but which so rarely get the chance to reach our screens. The Thirty-nine Steps was originally a novel by John Buchan and has already been filmed twice, by HITCHCOCK in 1935, starring ROBERT DONAT , and by RALPH THOMAS in 1960, starring KENNETH MORE. Gavin Millar looks at the tradition from which it sprang. Plus a foretaste of one of the most interesting London Film Festivals ever.

This year's London Film Festival contained five entries from India. It's a reminder that we hardly see any of the output of the biggest film industry in the world. Gavin Millar reports from Bombay, including interviews with Satyajtt Ray , Shyam Benegal and two of India's heart-throbs, Shashi Kapoor and Parveen Babi.

Gavin Millar presents another edition in his regular series about the cinema today.

Gavin Millar talks to Robert Alt man about his new film A Wedding; plus Karel Reisz 's Dog Soldiers and other turn-of-the-year news. (Postponed from 20 December)

wo years ago Marion Elliott , a 20-year-old from Brixton, gave up working in Woolworths and became punk singer Poly Styrene. Having created her own plastic image, she formed a band, X-Ray Spex, and set about reflecting life in the synthetic 70s with songs like 1 The Day the World Turned Day-Glo' and ' Germ-Free Adolescents' 'Rock stars are disposable products, and I just wanted to send the whole thing up.' This film observes the differing worlds of MARION ELLIOTT and POLY STYRENE.

Assault on Precinct 13 and Dark Star were two of the ' sleepers ' of the last two years - small-budget films from the USA that struck a chord right round the world. Their young writer/director John Car penter's third feature film Hal loween has opened in London. Gavin Millar interviews John Carpenter and star Donald Pleasence on location in Los Angeles.

Fibreglass carcasses, a flaming typewriter, and a troop of girl guides - each has been a -key ingredient in a work of art by Leopoldo Maler. Deliberately provocative, surprise and spectacle are key elements in Maler's work. How do the verbal images of poetry relate to the visual images of painting? Charles Tomlinson , one of England's finest poets, is also a painter. In this film he explores the landscapes, urban and natural, which have inspired his work.

The sell-out success of this year's Royal Shakespeare season at Stratford is the musical play, Piaf. Jane Lapotaire, television's Marie Curie, has won universal critical acclaim for her performance as the great French singer. Tonight Jane Lapotaire talks about imitating the inimitable. What Did You Do in 'The Warp' Daddy? A cast of 50 actors and musicians playing over 200 parts were commandeered by Ken Campbell for his marathon production of The Warp at London's ICA. They were there to perform an epic cycle of ten plays running an uninterrupted 22 hours. Arena was there to witness the event and to film the cast prior to their collapse.

John Barry (designer Star Wars and Superman) is now directing Saturn 3. Ridley Scott (The Duellists) is shooting The Alien. Gavin Millar reports on these two new British SF films.

Other Writers Will Tell You Different.... Lifers in prison cages, comedians in Hollywood, adolescents in the East End and female androids on the edge of the galaxy have all been subjects for Glasgow play-wright Tom McGrath in a career which started only in 1976. Arena profiles an original new talent. With extracts from The Hard Man and Mr Laurel and Mr Hardy. The Moving Picture Mime Show More like Tom and Jerry than Marcel Marceau , this highly unconventional group has attracted a cult following by combining traditional mime with their own fast-moving cartoon style.

Isabelle Huppert is 23 - ' a stunning actress ', says Claude Chabrol ; 'Best Actress ' at Cannes in 1978 for Violette Noziere , the new Chabrol thriller. We talk to her in Paris. Alberta Hunter is 83, a classic blues singer who performs the soundtrack of Alan Rudolph 's Remember my Name. We catch her singing at The Cookery, New York.

The television premiere of GEOFF DUNBAR'S brilliant animation film. Based on ALFRED JARRY's notorious surrealist hero, Pere Ubu , it chronicles the rise to power of a kind of punk Macbeth, a lewd and unscrupulous despot with the mentality of a petit bourgeois and with absolutely no redeeming qualities. Ubu Roi was originally written by Jarry as a schoolboy in 1888 and eventually presented to an outraged public in 1896. For his version of the story Dunbar has invented a brutal and graphic style to recreate the explosive impact of Jarry's original production.

Twenty-three years ago Don Siegel made his famous horrorpic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Now there is a new Invasion, even more chilling than the original; make-up effects by the man who dreamed up the aliens in Close Encounters, special sound effects by the man who ' voiced' R2D2 in Star Wars. Gavin Millar talks to star.

At the height of the American depression in the summer of 1936, t writer JAMES AGEE and photographer WALKER EVANS travelled south to Alabama. There they lived with a family of poor-white farmers recording their daily lives in intimate detail. What finally emerged was an extraordinary and personal account of deprivation and poverty. The book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men has become a classic. More than 40 years later Arena returned to Alabama, in the foot-steps of Agee and Evans, to trace the survivors of that original family.

with Gavin Millar. Everybody knows about Kung Fu, Run Run Shaw and Bruce Lee. They probably know less about the young film-makers who are trying to get a few of Hong Kong's more pressing problems on to the screen: over-crowding, poverty, refugees, and worries about China. There are, too, the glamorous invaders from Hollywood who see Hong Kong as another exotic backdrop where two hearts might beat as one. Candice Bergen has been there starring in Oliver's Story, the sequel to Love Story. Where's the real Hong Kong gone? ' she asks.

Rock band Sham 69 have a large and loyal following of working-class kids, who call themselves 'The Sham Army'. They have a reputation for causing trouble and Sham concerts have often been disrupted and brought to an end by fighting. Jimmy Pursey, the lead singer, has struggled to prevent these outbreaks but the violent and conflicting passions aroused at Sham concerts have placed him in an increasingly difficult position. sham's latest album That's Life portrays the pressures that face the kids who follow the band. Arena this week re-creates scenes from that album and follows the story of one Sham concert which threatened to explode.

Arena presents a film about the strange art of ventriloquism with Tattersall and his amazing life-size doll.

A film about the popular reggae band Steel Pulse, Whose highly successful debut album ' Handsworth Revolution' launched them last summer on the road to fame. Although their roots are in Jamaica STEEL PULSE is very much an indigenous British band. ' If you are a Black man born here there's no way you are going to get that Jamaican feel. We are putting over the feelings of the Black kids here about the trouble that is going to come.'

The Paintings of Kit Williams Inspired by the landscape, the wildlife and by his village neighbours, artist Kit Williams conjures up in his paintings a vivid folk-lore of his own. In tonight's Arena, this magical world comes alive in a Gloucestershire valley.

One in six people in Britain will spend some time in a mental hospital. For 50 years, painting or drawing have provided an important key to the problems of the mentally ill. This Arena film presents some of the extraordinary and moving pictures of the mind produced in Europe since the war.

John Hoyland is reckoned by many both here and abroad to be this country's finest abstract painter. A key figure for younger artists and critics, he has been both loved and hated to excess. As a major retrospective of his work opens in London, here is a film that stays close to the artist during six days when he faces hostile criticism, starts a new painting and explains why, in bleaker moments, painting can seem ' like flicking away in a corner with a feather duster '.

Athol Fugard is the author of such celebrated plays as The Blood-knot, The Island and Sizwe Bansi is Dead. He is known throughout the world for his opposition to apartheid and for his determination to express these views through the theatre and within South Africa. Last year his latest play, A Lesson from Aloes, opened in Johannesburg. It was both written and directed by Fugard and Arena was there to follow its progress from the first day of rehearsal until the opening night. The film offers a unique insight into the evolution of a play and the remarkable tenacity of its author.

Formerly a professional screamer in horror films, a belly-dancer in the Middle East, Lene Lovich has now emerged as one of the most original performers in rock music -aided and abetted by a bizarre appearance and an extraordinary vocal range. Arena travels with Lene and her constant companion Les on a journey to Berlin.

Arena presents the extraordinary story of Tim Page, war photographer and Vietnam legend-a tale first told in MICHAEL HERR'S celebrated book about Vietnam, Dispatches. 'People made Page sound crazy and ambitious, like the Sixties Kid, a stone-cold freak in a country where the madness raced up the hills and into the jungles ... he'd picked up a camera the way you or I would pick up a ticket, but he would go places for pictures that very few other photographers were going.' Page was wounded four times in Vietnam. The fourth and final time, he was logged ' dead on arrival'. But he survived against all the odds. Tonight he tells his story.

Arena presents a hilarious and touching portrait of the great Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, filmed on location in Brooklyn, New York, and featuring friends, relatives and other ' odd-balls '. 'I wouldn't say that Yiddish is dead, neither would I say that Yiddish is blooming. I would say that Yiddish is sick. But in our history, between being sick and dying is a long, long way...

This week Arena features two highly-individual women artists. Peggy Taub has always wanted to sculpt like the classic Greeks. But whenever she leans over the clay bin an animal head appears. An American writer and artist who now lives in London, Peggy Taub's work centres on the belief that the main difference between people and animals 'lies in the placement of the ears'. Thalma Goldman We look at the work of one of the most original artist-animators around today. Her latest film Stanley has just been nominated as Britain's entry to the Berlin Film Festival. Plus a 'commercial break' with news of current exhibitions in the arts.

Irish folk music is one of the oldest unbroken cultural traditions in Europe. As the Sense of Ireland festival of arts comes to London, Arena presents some of the finest Irish musicians of today. In tonight's programme the Bothy Band and Planxty - two of the best folk groups of recent years - play and sing with their families and friends on location in Dublin and on the west coast of Ireland.

Adrian Thrills investigates a new and exhilarating musical blend which is taking the country by storm. 2-tone is a unique mix of music, fusing together reggae, rock, soul, ska, blue beat and punk. With its home in Coventry and its roots in reggae, it derives its name and identity from the co-existence of its black and white members. Tonight's film features The Specials and The Selecter, the founders of the 2-tone sound.

A profile of Liverpool playwright Alan Bleasdale With two new productions packing them in, in the North of England, ALAN BLEASDALE continues to build on the popular success of his TV plays The Black Stuff and Scully's New Year's Eve. Arena looks at the people and places - the tarmac gang, the school, the hospital and the docks around which he has woven his plays. 'I didn't know what a proscenium arch was till I was into my fourth play ... I'm writing about people and emotions, people at work, people in conflict ... I suppose I'm really writing about " laughter and tears ".'

As prizewinning writer/performer Victoria Wood opens in her latest play, Good Fun, Arena looks at her talent to amuse through her witty and engaging songs. And we profile teenage playwright Andrea Dunbar, whose remarkable first play, The Arbor, is now running at the Royal Court. Written when she was only 15, it draws on her own experience as a schoolgirl mother.

The story of an unusual collaboration between rock musician Brian Eno and artist illustrator Russell Mills. The 65 works in Russell Mills' new series of paintings provide a remarkable visual counterpoint for 38 of Brian Eno's songs. It's a project they have both pursued obsessively for over seven years. 'I see myself,' says Mills, 'as a kind of explorer. Given the music and lyrics as a starting point, I set off into alien territory in search of a visual solution to the songs.' plus Rainbow Hughes Painter Patrick Hughes pursues rainbows in St Ives, in search of visual puns, paradoxes and jokes.

featuring "Where Did You Get That Hat?" The outrageous hats of designer David Shilling, modelled by his mother Gertrude - doyenne of Ascot Day... "One Ascot I wore a Christmas tree hat with lots of glass balls on - the same one I wore when I was elected Oddball of the Year by the Export Clothing Federation." and "Seams Like A Dream" A bizarre musical entertainment from 'Swankey Modes'. Mel, Judy, Esmé and Willie - four girls who have created a unique fashion house in a corner shop in Camden Town launch their new collection in a most unusual way...

One after another mighty politicians have fallen victim to the savage caricatures of Peter Fluck and Roger Law , better known as Luck and Flaw. Among their most memorable targets are Henry Kissinger as the Statue of Liberty, Jeremy Thorpe as Saint Sebastian and Keith Joseph as Dracula. Uncannily modelled in plasticine, the victims are then photographed for magazines and newspapers all over the world. The results are bizarre, witty and unapologetically extreme.

Stanley Kubrick's long-awaited film The Shining opens in London this week and throughout the country from tomorrow. To mark the event Arena offers a unique opportunity to eavesdrop on the set of the legendary but elusive film director. Kubrick's youngest daughter Vivian, having obtained her father's reluctant consent, was on location throughout the filming armed with an Aaton camera and a miniature tape recorder. The result is some unusually candid scenes of the director at work with his stars - Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall.

Not so long ago they were playing in London pubs. This week - 16 platinum discs, 21 gold and a triumphant world tour later, Dire Straits return to the London stage. Tonight's Arena film features the superb concert they played on their last visit to The Rainbow, and band members talk about their music and the pressures and consequences of their astonishing success.

Arena eavesdrops on the writing of a new adventure for James Hazell , popular cockney private eye. He is the creation of Terry Venables , manager of Queen's Park Rangers, and Gordon Wil liams, author of Straw Dogs. Now the TV series has ended, who, after NICHOLAS BALL , could Possibly take over the part? Both authors have definite ideas about how their hero should be portrayed. In tonight's film John Bindon and Michael Elphick try out the role ... and indulge in a little eavesdropping of their own.

' Uncle Sidney' is the kindly old soul in charge of an institute for the disabled: he tucks them up at night and keeps them supplied with back numbers of the Reader's Digest. But, his crippled charges have had enough of him, and Side-show, the Graeae Theatre Company's highly successful play, tells the story of their escape. Arena marks the International Year of the Disabled with a profile of this extraordinary company of disabled actors.

This week two genuinely, original English artists introduce you to their work: Sam Smith , whose impeccably carved and printed wooden models evoke an Edwardian childhood - obsessed with the sea, the circus and the fairground; and Chris Orr , artist and illustrator, whose witty, crowded drawings penetrate behind the discreet net curtains of suburbia. Plus the ' commercial break ', with news of current exhibitions in the arts.

Arena marks a major retrospective exhibition at London's Hayward Gallery with a film about the great American realist painter EDWARD HOPPER. His subject is the face of America - haunting, unforgettable images of late-night bars, lonely hotel rooms, sunlit buildings and isolated figures. Through them we glimpse an aspect of America, austere and un-idealised, which we now recognise as familiar. But Hopper was not a recorder of externals. ' I believe that the great painters have attempted to force this unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions .

For the past ten years Peter Brook and his unique company of actors have travelled the world with a series of extraordinary theatrical ventures. The last stage of their journey was Australia. Here, in a disused quarry in the hills above Adelaide they perform some of their most popular plays, and a remarkable meeting takes place with tribal Aboriginal performers who have travelled 1,000 miles to see a production of The Ik. This story, of the breakdown of a traditional tribal community, provides a moving parallel to the problems faced by the Aborigines themselves.

Tonight, from a converted cowshed in the wilds of Scotland, Arena presents The Smallest Theatre in Great Britain. Immortalised in the Guinness Book of Records, Barrie and Marianne Hesketh have for the past 17 years been the sole designers, directors and cast for every production, including their famous two-man version of The Tempest. It seems nothing is impossible, ' although

' It suddenly dawned on me that I was absolutely broke, completely and utterly. I didn't have a penny in the world ... this was where fame was cruel.' (GARY GLITTER) Five years ago Gary Glitter announced his retirement - unfortunately the world took him at his word. Once he lived the life of a millionaire in a Sussex mansion, now he lives in Earls Court, hopelessly in debt. But the man who seemed to be just another in a long line of rock casualties has returned in triumph, welcomed back from the scrapheap by the punk generation for whom he's an idol and a legend.

Lupino Lane , the man who made ' The Lambeth Walk ' famous, was a comic who once rivalled Chaplin and Keaton. With the advent of the talkies, his small studio folded and all the negatives of over 40 films were destroyed. After years of painstaking research film historian Philip Jenkinson has managed to track down and restore 14 of the original films. Tonight's programme picks out some of the best moments from the lost legacy of Lupino Lane.

This week Arena patrols the skies above Metropolis in search of the legend that is SUPERMAN ... Meet Kirk Alyn , the first celluloid-Superman and Christopher Reeve the latest; Dr Fredric Wertham , Superman's greatest living adversary; Joanne, the model for Lois Lane ; Dave ' Darth Vader ' Prowse, who turned a 13-stone weakling into The Man of Steel and, for the first time on British television, Superman's creators, the legendary Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Britain's musical reputation is second to none, and depends ultimately on an exceptional tradition of youth orchestras. The educational ideals which underlie this tradition are exemplified in Leicestershire. Here, for the past 30 years, music and art have been central to school curricula; consequently, children of all backgrounds have had the opportunity to pursue a musical career. The present cuts threaten this unique tradition.

From Brooklyn to Beverly Hills - the life and times of a great comic film director. Tonight on BBC2 Mel Brooks , creator of Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein , and The Producers, reveals practically everything. Filmed on location in Hollywood with Gene Wilder , Dom deluise , Sid Caesar and Mr Brooks 's lawyer.

She is two-and-a-half feet tall and nearly 500 years old. She hangs in The Louvre behind plate-glass - an unsigned, undated portrait of a smiling woman, the most idolised and abused woman in the history of art. She can be found in The Louvre, on the pavement in Buckingham Palace Road, on Doctor Who and on biscuit tins ... There's only one Mona Lisa but she's everywhere. Tonight Arena looks behind the Gioconda smile...

A ski run in Italy, a supermarket manager in Luton, a sandwich bar in London EC2, Arena opens the bonnet of the Ford Cortina, Britain's most popular, most stolen, and most misunderstood car. 'Dagenham dustbin'? 'Poor man's Rolls-Royce'? In the year that may well see the end of a legend, some of the motoring public, including Sir John Betjeman, Tom Robinson, Alexei Sayle, Sir Terence Beckett and Magnus Magnusson take apart the Ford Cortina: Life and Works 1962-1982.

In a month of continuing controversy about the aims and methods of the ' documentary', Arena presents a classic film by one of the pioneers of the movement-Humphrey Jennings 's Listen to Britain. Made in 1941, it will be seen here, complete, for the first time on British television. Also Gavin Millar looks at the craft of recent documentary makers, focusing on the techniques of the BBC's current Police series. With Roger Graef , Charles Stewart and the team who made it.

'I should never have stayed in movies. But it's a mistake I can't regret because it's like saying I shouldn't have stayed married to that woman and I did because I loved her. I'm in love with making movies.' Part 2: in which Orson Welles leaves Hollywood for ever and begins his journey through Europe, searching for money for his movies, making The Trial, F for Fake, his master-piece Chimes at Midnight, and working on some of the most talked-about unfinished films in movie history.

For nearly 50 years everybody who was anybody in the British theatre passed before the lens of Angus McBean - Gielgud, Olivier, Thorndike, Coward ... He was known as the photographer who resolutely flattered his sitters. Tonight, after a ten-year absence. McBean demonstrates his skill with his old friend Sir Ralph Richardson. He discusses for the first time his astonishing surreal pictures of the 30s and 40s.

Continues the Samuel Beckett season. Starring Jack MacGowran A rare opportunity to see an early television premiere. Recorded in 1966, tonight's presentation has only one visible actor, the late Jack MacGowran who, with Patrick Magee, was one of the principal interpreters of Samuel Beckett's work. Unseen is an actress, Sian Phillips. She is the voice of a woman whom Joe once loved. He sits remembering, and his memories recall a life whose hypocrisy and faithlessness have brought tragedy - as much for Joe as for the woman. Introduced by Martin Esslin. An Arena Presentation.

Arena continues the Samuel Beckett Season with a unique record of his new play Rockaby which has just opened at the National Theatre. Premiered in America, it was filmed in rehearsal and performance by the celebrated film maker D.A. Pennebaker. The programme follows Billie Whitelaw's preparations for her latest Beckett role: 'People think because I do this I'm well read and knowledgeable and know what it means. In fact, I have no education at all. Beckett blows the notes... they just come out of me....' Attend the opening night in Buffalo; New York, and see the strange and haunting play, and the old woman rocking herself into death...

Continues the Samuel Beckett Season. In one of the most extraordinary pieces of modern drama Billie Whitelaw, Beckett's foremost interpreter, performs this astonishing tour de force. Not I - the mouth suspended in space, caused a sensation when it was first performed at the Royal Court in 1973. Beckett himself is a great admirer of this television version. Introduced by Martin Esslin. An Arena presentation.

Continues the Samuel Beckett Season with a premiere. A play without words. Quad has a musical structure. It is a kind of canon or catch-a mysterious square-dance. Four hooded figures move along the sides of the square. Each has his own particular itinerary. A pattern emerges and collisions are just avoided. From these permutations, Beckett, as writer and director creates an image of life that is both highly charged and strangely funny. Introduced by Martin Esslin.

Concludes the Samuel Beckett Season. One of the best-known Beckett monologues starring its creator, the late Patrick Magee. Krapp, an old man, is alone with his memories and the reels of tape he has recorded during his life. As he reviews the years listening to his diary, he finally makes a conclusion about the most important thing that ever happened to him. Introduced by MARTIN ESSLIN.

Last year a £13-million painting travelled in top secret from America to Spain. Next day it was headline news that Picasso's masterpiece ' Guernica ' had come home at last, after 40 years in exile. This Arena special tells the story of an extraordinary work of art, and talks to survivors of the terrible event that inspired it.

Today, in post-revolutionary Cuba, under the benign patronage of Fidel Castro, classical ballet thrives. This unlikely success story is mainly due to the legendary figure of Alicia Alonso. After almost 20 years as an internationally acclaimed star of the American ballet, she returned to support the Revolution in 1959, determined to create from scratch a national ballet company. Now aged over 60, her long career frequently threatened by failing eyesight, Alicia Alonso is still Cuba's prima ballerina, still performing Giselle and still the formidable leader of a huge company of dancers, all of them now trained and recruited within Cuba.

George Melly presents films of the greatest names of swing jazz - but with a difference. Some were made for visual juke boxes which flourished in the early 40s, others are promotional shorts from the major Hollywood companies. The forerunners of today's rock promos, these gems are by turns witty, moving, surreal and always irresistibly entertaining. The line-up includes Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong Billy Holliday , Fats Waller Bessie Smith and the three kings of boogie-woogie, Meade Lux Lewis , Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson.

Writing about his experiences as a war prisoner in Dresden in the novel Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut achieved a unique blend of dead-pan humour and shrewd observation of human folly. For Vonnegut, disaster is an everyday experience. Today the world freezes over, tomorrow a visitor from outer space is brained to death with a golf club... Tonight Arena looks at Vonnegut's career with the help of his most famous creation, his alter ego - the SF writer Kilgore Trout.

Tonight Arena takes an extraordinary journey through the video age. Video pirates, video trials, video weddings, video graves.... Fifty years ago it was just the dream of a science fiction future - now It's All True. With Sir Michael Hordern, Dandy Nichols, Stephen Berkoff, Mel Brooks, Koo Stark, Ray Davies, Mari Wilson, Grace Jones and Orson Welles

The great Luis Bunuel died last month. Born in 1900, he was undisputably one of the outstanding creative figures of the 20th century. Tonight Gavin Millar introduces a ten-week season of his films, beginning tonight at 9.25, which will culminate in the autumn with an exclusive Arena profile about his life.

Dear boy, you are out of your mind, this woman will annihilate you, she will grind you to a fine powder and blow you away ... Director Joseph Mankiewicz recalls the warning he was given by a colleague when he offered Bette Davis the lead role in "All About Eve". Bette Davis is undoubtedly one of the most original stars Hollywood has ever produced, and in this exclusive interview, filmed on her 70th birthday, she is as formidable as ever.

Starring Claire Bloom, Sam Wanamaker from the novel by Philip Roth with Mark Linn Baker, Paulette Smit 'You're not so nice and polite in your fiction. You're a different person.' Philip Roth's masterly novel about writers and writing, conflicts of family, race and art, has been specially dramatised for Arena. Nathan Zuckerman learns some unexpected lessons about himself and his aspirations to become a great writer, when he spends a night in the troubled household of his hero, the distinguished E.I. Lonoff. And who is the young woman with the shadowed eyes - and the mysterious past?

Following the success of Jazz Juke-Box I, George Melly presents another selection of jazz shorts and ' soundies ' - the delightful films made for visual juke-boxes in the early 40s. He is joined by great jazzman Slim Gaillard, famous for such hits as ' Flat foot floogie ' and ' Dunkin' bagel'. Gaillard recalls swing's heyday and its legends -Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole.

Roman Vishniac is a Russian Jew born in St Petersburg in 1897. His striking images of life in the Jewish ghettos - taken with a concealed camera just before the last war - are extraordinary documents of a lost epoch and a lost people. ' I returned again and again because I wanted to save their faces from the devastation of Hitler's Germany.' and Arena examines contemporary coverage of the destruction of Lebanon from two points of view: the photo journalist who arrives on assignment for an international agency; and the Lebanese citizen who finds himself compelled to document what is happening to his country.

Arena shows three film classics from the early years of British documentary, which began 50 years ago.

The GPO Film Unit-50 years old this year-went where no Hollywood film studio would dare to go in 1933. Down the mines, across the Alps, through the storms of the North Sea ... they really were a dedicated and intrepid group ot film makers. Held together by a dour and dynamic Scot, John Gnerson— the man who first coined the word documentary-they made some of the greatest factual films of the 1930s which still provide a fascinating insight into the everyday life of the time. Tonight Arena tells the story of this remarkable period of British cinema.

An Arena special Last September at the Royal Albert Hall Don and Phil Everly performed together for the first time in ten years. The concert was the popular music event of the year. With a fine band, including lead guitarist Albert Lee and Pete Wingfield on keyboards, the Everlys faithfully re-created the sound of their huge repertoire of hits. 'Cathy's clown', All I have to do is dream', 'When will I be loved', 'Wake up, little Susie' and the rest stirred the memories and emotions of a rapturous audience. The Everlys' harmonies are among the most special sounds in rock 'n' roll-and they sound as good as ever.

Tonight's episode of the five-part Arena biography tells the story of Orwell's marriage to Eileen O'Shaughnessy , his growing political awareness and retraces what was to be the most important journey of his life-the trip he made to Wigan and the industrial north in 1936, in an attempt to understand the embittered and divided working class of the 30s. Among those appearing are Sir Richard Rees , Kay Ekkeval, Geoffrey Gorer and the people of Wigan and Barnsley.

Orwell, like many of his generation, enlisted to fight on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Filmed in Barcelona and on the Huesca front, where he fought, tonight's film tells the story of Orwell's war. It begins as a heroic crusade for a beleaguered socialist state, and ends with disillusion and betrayal, with Orwell fleeing across the Spanish frontier, a wounded and wanted man. Among those appearing are Stafford Cottman, Victor Alba, Enrique Ardroer, Ramon Jurado and Professor Bernard Crick.

For a brief period after the Spanish Civil War, Orwell was a revolutionary socialist, violently opposed to the coming war with Germany. Tonight's film shows his sudden emergence as a patriot in 1940, his ill-starred career as a producer at the BBC, and later as a columnist on Tribune. The film closes with the end of the war and the writing of Orwell's masterpiece Animal Farm. with Douglas Cleverdon, Lettice Cooper, Tosco Fyvel, Anthony Powell and Malcolm Muggeridge.

Tonight's Arena Special tells the extraordinary story of two of the legendary figures of American 'gospel' -the music whose emotional impact and burning conviction lie at the heart of much of today's popular music, Tomas A Dorsey and Willie Mae Ford Smith.

ANTHONY CARO: 'I wanted to play games with our sense of space ... you experience this room with the eyes and the body too.' HOWARD HODGKIN: 'I tried to evoke a sense of romantic luxury. Sadly in a public place nothing very exciting is meant to go on.' RICHARD HAMILTON : 'I took the idea of a room in an institution as a way of looking at the times we live in.' MARC CHAIMOWICZ: 'There are hints of a liaison between two people, like a frozen frame from a film.' Four leading contemporary artists take on an unusual and imaginative commission, to design and build a room of their own.

Dario Fo is unique in world theatre. Playwright, actor, clown, teacher and philosopher, he is an international celebrity with two West-End smash hits to his credit - Can Pay? Won't Pay! and Accidental Death of an Anarchist. He is also a passionate collector of theatre history and a great hero of the Italian Left. Arena filmed Dario Fo against the background of medieval Italy, working with students in Umbria, at home in Milan and against the colourful backdrop of the Venice Carnival, where he performed his triumphant one-man comic show, Mistero Buffo.

Tonight Arena takes a journey down one of the best known streets in the world. Sunset Boulevard stretches 27 miles from Los Angeles' Chinatown all the way to the ocean, a ride made famous by Philip Marlowe in the Chandler books. Film star mansions give way to tatty motels; exclusive offices stand alongside nightclubs with aspiring comics and amateur nude contests. Then the famous 'strip' and Hollywood's legendary coffee shop, Schwabs, where, they say, a girl in a tight sweater turned into Lana Turner.

David Inshaw belongs to a great tradition of English Romantic Painting - the tradition of Stanley Spencer, Samuel Palmer and the Pre-Raphelites. His most famous painting 'The Badminton Game' now hangs in the Tate Gallery. For years he was a member of the Brotherhood of Ruralists, a group of painters, among them Peter Blake, preoccupied with English pastoral themes. But Inshaw's pictures tell their own story - of people, places and objects meticulously and magically recalled. Abandoning conventional interviews and commentary, tonight's film offers a journey into David Inshaw's haunting, imaginative world.

Tonight, in the anniversary year of Edward Elgar 's death, Arena plays host to KEN RUSSELL 'S classic music documentary. Made in 1962 for the 100th edition of the arts magazine Monitor, it marked the arrival of the dramatised arts documentary and proved to be one of the most popular television films ever made. An unashamedly romantic evocation of the composer's life and inspiration in the Malvern Hills, the film nevertheless foreshadowed Russell's later, more contentious, work with his darkly ironic counterpoint of 'Land of hope and glory' with the battle scenes and graveyards of the First World War. Narrated by Huw Wheldon.

For the first time on British television, Arena presents a concert by this great legend of rock n roll. Jerry Lee Lewis doesn't sound like anybody else - the voice, the piano and the on-stage antics make an unforgettable combination. He plays and sings today exactly as he did when he made his first records, and as a special bonus the concert is preceded by rare footage of him performing 'Whole lotta shakin" in 1957. Since then he has kept his reputation for wildness, eccentricity and the ability to hold an audience spellbound. Last May Arena's cameras captured him in top form.

Tonight Arena profiles the French film director Louis Malle. Malle is a director who has never let himself be tied down to one style of film making. The Lovers, with Jeanne Moreau , shocked the conservative public in 1958 and his Indian documentaries were candid enough to concern the Indian government. Even in the permissive 70s, Malle found ways to provoke, depicting child prostitution in Pretty Baby with Brooke Shields , and corruption in Lacombe Lucien , about a collaborator in wartime France.

American-born writer and director Joseph Losey died last month in London. He made his home in England in 1952 when he was hounded out of America after the Communist witch-hunt. Tonight Dirk Bogarde, star of The Servant, who first worked with him 30 years ago, remembers Losey and his distinguished career (this is followed by a broadcast of The Servant).

Tonight Arena presents the first film portrait of the greatest of all the jazz singers. Billie Holiday's tragic story, from her traumatic childhood in Baltimore to her premature death in a New York hospital at the age of 44, is told in the words of her closest friends and colleagues - but mostly through the songs themselves. Arena has assembled an unprecedented number of her filmed performances.

The legendary Eubie Blake 's career as a ragtime pianist and composer began in 1883. Sadly last year, five days after his 100th birthday he died. This short tribute includes one of the earliest talkies, Eubie's classic 'I'm just wild about Harry' and a visit to singer Alberta Hunter.

To mark his 75th birthday, Arena presents this exclusive film portrait of the great British painter, Francis Bacon. Despite his world-wide fame, Bacon remains one of the most contentious painters working today, and he still paints the human figure with the same conviction and intensity that startled the art world at his first exhibition nearly 40 years ago. Tonight, amid the spectacular disorder of his Chelsea studio, Bacon talks on film with great candour, to his friend of many years, the distinguished writer and critic David Sylvester.

This week: a portrait of one of the most individual architectural talents America has produced. Bruce Goff discovered his vocation as a child in Tulsa, Oklahoma, drawing cathedrals and palaces on scraps of paper, and the innocence of those early visionary sketches is evident in all his later work-from the cathedral in Tulsa he designed at the age of 22 to his extraordinary domestic monuments built for the American householder. A friend and disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, Goff continued to pioneer well into his 70s. Arena went with him to his native midwest to see some of his astonishingly varied and inventive commissions.

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti is the most popular and controversial musician ever to come out of Africa. Born in Nigeria 47 years ago, he has dominated the African musical scene since the early 70s with his unique fusion of traditional rhythm and jazz melodies known as Afro-Beat. Fela's music speaks of the conflict between the European colonial heritage and the traditional African past and cries out forcefully against corruption, exploitation and cultural betrayal. This programme interweaves Fela's music with the story of his struggle against the Nigerian authorities to retain his position as the musical conscience of independent Africa.

Every November musicians from all over Latin America come to take part in the international music festival at Varadero in Cuba. For five days bands from all the 'other' Americas vie with each other in a virtuoso display of music - music which is, astonishingly, almost unknown in Britain. Last month Arena went to Varadero to capture the event and tonight presents the finest in contemporary Cuban and Latin American music. With Irakere and Arturo Sandoval ; Los Van Van, Cuba's most popular dance band; soul calypso by Dimension Costena from Nicaragua; and bands from Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Uruguay.

For many Luciano Pavarotti is the world's greatest tenor - certainly his place is assured among the legends of Grand Opera. In New York on 16 August, he Performed before 20,000 People at Madison Square Garden; it was an unprecedented step for an opera singer, a spectacular succcess. Along with his favourite arias from grand opera, Pavarotti delighted his audience with popular songs from his native Italy. An Arena Special.

Howard Jacobson the eldest son of MAX JACOBSON the Manchester conjuror, made a late but successful start in the world of fiction. At the age of 41 he published Coming from Behind a scabrous satire of polytechnic life; and now, with his sexual comedy Peeping Tom he has established himself as an important new voice in English fiction. Tonight Arena looks at this Leavisite polytechnic lecturer, shopkeeper and original Jewish humorist on the move from Manchester, Wolverhampton, Cornwall and Australia.

The artists Julian Schnabel , Markus Lupertz , Sandro Chia , Francesco Clemente and Georg Baselitz command some of the highest prices on today's booming art market. Their paintings, monumental in scale and mainly figurative in style, have begun to fill the walls of private collections world-wide. They have been hailed as the 'New Expressionists' - though some cynical observers accuse them of turning out their pictures to order. As they establish themselves in spacious New York premises, castles in Germany and even retreats in India, Arena examines the real driving force behind today's art world successes.

Karen Blixen's voyage to Africa in 1913 was a journey away from the 20th century. Kenya was then a semi-feudal society, a land of Masai and Kikuyu, teeming with game. In 1931 she returned to Denmark having lost her farm, her health and her closest friends. Within a decade she had produced her three greatest books Seven Gothic Tales, Out of Africa and Last Tales. Karen Blixen had become Isak Dinesen, the writer. Taking part in tonight's portrait are her former servant Kamante, biographer Judith Thurman, Errol Trzebinski, Sir Laurens van der Post and Elspeth Huxley.

A Musical for the 80s starring Tim Curry, Sting, Alexei Sayle, Gary Glitter and introducing Jason Carter To lig. verb. To gain something for nothing by wit and ingenuity. Young Gordon Shilling arrives in London in search of fame and fortune, only to find himself alone, penniless and hungry. Plucked off the streets by the mysterious Eden Rothwell and initiated in the art of ligging, he begins a picaresque journey through the highlife and lowlife of the nation. Along the way such experts as the Lig of Gentlemen, Peter York, April Ashley, John Bull, Samuel Smiles and Machiavelli show the hero how to help himself in self-help Britain.

Tony Harrison is the son of a baker, and his poetry relishes, and mourns for the class he comes from. His subjects are sex, love, politics, class warfare, death, all the rituals and performances of our lives. His work is direct, witty, often angry, expressed in the language and idioms of his northern roots. His recent adaptation of the English Mystery plays with the National Theatre Company has been hailed as 'the most moving, solemn and joyful theatrical event in London'. His latest cycle of poems is on an intensely private theme, meditations on his own family life and relationships. Tonight, Arena investigates a unique voice in contemporary literature.

One of the greatest masters of 20th-century painting died last month at the age of 97. This filmed tribute contains the last interview given by Chagall and charts his life and work from the earliest years in Vitebsk, Russia, through two world wars, and a revolution in his homeland, his time in Paris, and la Ruche, to his last home in the south of France. The programme shows Chagall at work in his studio and painting his monumental windows for Reims Cathedral and follows his account of his life, in his own words and in readings from his autobiography. An Arena presentation.

Tonight Arena presents a cornucopia of the blues from the raw sounds of the Mississippi Delta to the jazz and rock 'n' roll that blues gave birth to. As a crowning delight, the evening is presented from the studio by the most famous exponent of the blues guitar, the acknowledged 'King of the Blues', B. B. King. In conversation with John Walters , he explains the blues, its history and the profound emotions and experiences that created it.

Blues Night presents rare footage of the harmonica blues player Sonny Boy Williamson, who gave B.B. King his big break in 1948. ‘He was on the radio doing live performances when I first came to Memphis. He put me on his show to do this one song – a lady saloon-keeper hired me that day and I’ve worked ever since,’ King explained to the Radio Times.

John Walters talks to B.B. King - aided by his guitar Lucille - about his extraordinary life, from a childhood picking cotton in Mississippi to worldwide stardom.

Harley Cokliss’ classic blues documentary includes performances by Muddy Waters, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy, and shows how the tough urban music of Chicago developed out of the original rural blues.

The great Chicago broadcaster and journalist Studs Terkel and pianist Blind John Davis meet in a downtown bar to discuss and play the blues. This interview was shot for "Omnibus: Studs Terkel's Chicago" but not shown in the final programme.

This medley of the blues features Fred McDowell, Thomas 'Georgia Tom' Dorsey, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Huddie Ledbetter - better known as 'Lead Belly' - performs 'Pick a Bale of Cotton', and Billie Holiday accompanied by Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Roy Eldridge, performs her own composition 'Fine and Mellow'.

Hard blues meets film noir as Big Bill Broonzy sings and plays in a Belgian nightclub back in the 1950s.

An Arena Special. Lubbock is a small town lost in the great plains of west Texas. Her most famous son, Buddy Holly , changed the face of popular music. Tonight Holly is remembered by the Crickets, The Everly Brothers, Keith Richards , and Paul McCartney. The programme features unique amateur film of Holly on tour with the other rock 'n' roll greats and at home with the Crickets in Texas. Arena also premieres the earliest film of ELVIS PRESLEY and the very first record made by THE BEATLES.

What do Charles Dickens , Count Leo Tolstoy , Barry Manilow and James Anderton , Chief Constable of Manchester, have in common? A love of the accordion. Tonight Arena investigates the appeal of a much-maligned instrument from its roots in Imperial China, and appraises its bellowings from Cajun to the classics, from Stockhausen to Jimmy Shand. Other sounds from around the world include the heart-throbs of the Indian cinema, Tex-Mex superstar Flaco Jiminez , Soweto's Mahotella Queens, and the Accordion World Cup in Folkestone.

Francesco Rosi is one of the foremost figures in post-war Italian cinema. His films have an epic sweep covering Mafia crime, political corruption and economic mismanagement in Italy since the liberation of the country from Fascism by the Americans in 1944. Filmed in Naples and his home in Rome, Rosi talks about his development as a film-maker with illustrations from Salvatore Giuliano, Lucky Luciano , Hands Over the City, Illustrious Corpses and Three Brothers.

Casa Verdi is a rambling mansion in the city of Milan, inhabited by an extraordinary and captivating group of people. Once it belonged to the composer Giuseppe Verdi : now it has become a home tor retired musicians. Once famous divas, composers, and singers from the opera chorus are bonded together by old memories and rivalries, their spirit and joy in their music quite undiminished by age. This film by Swiss director, Daniel Schmid , shared last year's documentary Grand Prix at Florence with Arena's s Sunset People.

The home of the White House, the Pentagon and the President is also the home of the most exciting soul scene of the 1980s. The raw power of the go-go beat has emerged within a stones-throw of America's palaces of power. Washington DC is 70 per cent black and go-go is more than just a musical trend - it is the lifestyle of Washington's black youth. In tonight's Arena, eminent go-go saxophonist Carl 'Low Budget' Jones, of the band Redds and the Boys, takes a journey around Washington city introducing its musicians and their place within the history of American soul music.

Novelist, poet, essayist and the first woman to be elected to the Academie Francaise, Marguerite Youreenar lives and writes on her island refuge off the coast of Maine. Her work ranges from a series of celebrated historical novels, including a classic study of the Emperor Hadrian, to translations of blues and gospel songs. Characteristically, Yourcenar is indifferent to public honour. The intellectual elite of the Academy, she says, 'decided to take a woman. It happened that woman was me.' In Arena this week, she talks about her life and work to writer and critic Peter Conrad.

In 1950 the Grand Prix of the prestigious Venice Film Festival went quite unexpectedly to a Japanese film. It was called Rashomon and the director was Akira Kurosawa. In the years since then he has become celebrated as a unique stylist and storyteller of humanity and compassion, producing a series of film classics like Seven Samurai, Living, Kagemuaha and his latest, Ran. In a rare interview Kurosawa, a reclusive and controversial figure, talks about his early films, about the masterpieces of the 50s and 60s, and about the struggles of his later years to continue his work in the face of mounting indifference and hostility within Japan.

Critical acclaim for a group of recent art school graduates has put Scottish art, and Glasgow in particular, firmly on the international map. Two people at the forefront of this unexpected renaissance are Stephen Campbell and Adrian Wiszniewski. Within three years of leaving college, their pictures already hang in the Tate Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and are sought after by museums and collectors in Europe and North America. In this week's Arena, the former classmates meet again to take stock of their meteoric rise and to compare notes on the art scene in Britain and New York.

Don McCullin 's powerful pictures of the horrors of war and deprivation have made him one of the world's most celebrated photographers. Now, after more than 20 years working exclusively with the stills camera, he has been commissioned by Arena to make his first film. In tonight's programme he turns his eye on life in Britain today, with portraits of Bradford, Harlow and East London. Through the industrial city, the dream of the new town and the capital past and present, McCullin reveals a Britain which is exotic, diverse and often disturbing.

Linton Kwesi Johnson takes a trip home to Jamaica and files a personal report on the long-standing relationship between the Caribbean and the mother country.

Calypso from Trinidad's Mighty Bomber, dancing from Nicaragua, Jamaican Bob Marley's 'Could you be loved', Grenadian poet Abdul Malik, and the original 'Peanut vendor' by Rita Montener and Her All-Girl Orchestra.

The celebrated West Indian poet Derek Walcott joins Linton Kwesi Johnson and Guyanese prodigy Fred D'Aguiar to debate the range and impact of Caribbean poetry. With filmed readings from C.L.R. James, Edward Braithwaite, Michael Smith and Mervyn Morris.

Out of the archives, a skanking delight from Kingston's Sombrero Club, 1964. Featuring Prince Buster, Toots and the Maytals and Jimmy Cliff.

Darcus Howe interviews leading Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes and Trinidadian historian John La Rose on the exotic and often bloody story of the Caribbean.

Despite the dangers and deprivations of war, the people of Bluefields, Nicaragua, still find time to do the Lambeth Walk and dance Maypole. Bluefields, on Nicaragua's east coast, is named after a notorious 17th-century pirate and its stormy past has provided it with a culture which is an anomalous amalgam of Spanish, British, American, Amerindian and African. Arena takes you down 'The Secret River' to this curious corner of the Caribbean.

Fuentes, La Rose and Howe are joined in the studio by this year's Calypso King David Rudder who tells the true story of the 'Trinidad Trinity' - calypso, steel pan music and carnival. With performances from The Mighty Bomber, Arrow The Renegades and David Rudder himself.

From the BBC treasure chest, Alan Whicker explores the forgotten comers of the Caribbean, where he meets the Pocomaniacs of Jamaica, the Redlegs of Barbados, and the last of the Caribs.

Filmed on his recent visit to London, Panamanian salsa star and politician Ruben Blades talks to Linton Kwesi Johnson about Latin music today, ranging from established stars like Cuba's Celia Cruz to the latest contender Wilfredo Vargas, currently taking New York by storm.

A bedtime treat from 1936: the GPO Film Unit present the Caribbean through the words of W.H. Auden and the music of Benjamin Britten.

A portrait of the man who made reggae known and appreciated all over the western world and who refused to abandon a message of personal and political liberation. Tonight's programme includes a wealth of his finest performances, from early sessions by the original Wailers to his last rehearsals in Kingston. Interviews with Marley himself and with those who knew him best, including his mother Cedella Booker , his wife Rita Marley , his original partners Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer , Judy Mowat and Marcia Griffiths from his backing group the 1 Threes, his art director Neville Garrick and Chris Blackwell , founder of Island Records.

Born in Trinidad in 1901, C.L.R. James came to England in the 1930s and was cricket correspondent for the Manchester Guardian. In this programme the author of the now classic book Beyond the Boundary selects his definitive cricket team. From W.G. Grace to Gary Sobers , C.L.R.'s choice spans seven decades and, using rare archive film, reveals some of the greatest moments in cricketing history.

In an old church in Havana, the Urfe brothers play Danzones, the first popular Cuban music to emerge from the blend of African and European traditions at the turn of the century. The dance it inspired was considered shocking by colonial Cuban society.

According to reggae greats Bob Marley and Burning Spear, football and Rastafari are one and the same thing. In the last week of the World Cup Rasta and the Ball takes you to the Marcus Garvey Youth Club, the beaches and Kingston's back-street pitches where reggae music and football are played with equal dedication and enthusiasm in the same spirit of Rastafari. Bob Marley demonstrates his skills on the field and in the recording studio.

Cuban jazz is rarely heard over here. Tonight Arena redresses the balance with a performance by virtuoso trumpeter, Arturo Sandoval. Much admired by Dizzy Gillespie , he returns the compliment with 'Blues homage'; he then takes to the piano for a dynamic duet with bass player, Jorge Reyes , and finally is joined by brilliant new-wave singer, Donato Poveda.

'I dreamt there were 72 angels, 72 trumpets, 72 vases of flowers - all things were 72. And then I saw directly the face of God himself. I was summoned to be an artist.' Bishop of his own church, Kapo is also Jamaica's most famous artist. His paintings and sculpture explore the mysterious world of dreams, possession and healing in a rich cultural mix drawing equally upon the spirit world of Africa and the Christianity of Europe.

Speaking from Henry Moore's own studio in Perry Green, Hertfordshire, John Read shares his personal memories of the artist he filmed six times over 28 years.

Arena presents Bob Dylan, concentrating on his classic songs and backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in his first concert on British television in over a decade.

Abdullah Ibrahim formerly Dollar Brand, pianist, composer, arranger, was bom in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1934. When Duke Ellington heard him in 1965 he was so impressed that he arranged for Ibrahim to move to America where he quickly became a leading figure in the jazz avant-garde. He has since lived and worked in exile in New York, developing a blend of jazz and the traditional styles of South Africa that have recently become fashionable in the West. Tonight's Arena moves between New York and the relics of the Cape Town he grew up in, explaining his beautiful, evocative music and the stories and feelings that inspired it.

In 1986 Andrei Tarkovsky 's remarkable career in the cinema received the accolade of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It sealed his reputation in the west as Russia's greatest living artist. In Moscow, however, his work has been at best ignored, at worst vilified as elitist and wilfully obscure. Official disfavour finally forced Tarkovsky to leave Russia to seek finance. It was only a few months before his recent death that his poetic and haunting films were given official recognition in Moscow. Tonight's Arena reviews Tarkovsky's life and work.

(Lino Brocka 's Philippines) Lino Brocka is the most influential film director in the Philippines, and a leading figure in the civil rights movement. Throughout the period of martial law, he opposed the Marcos regime. In 1985 he was jailed on a trumped-up charge of sedition. Now Cory Aquino is president, but poverty and intimidation are firmly entrenched, and the communist guerrillas, the New People's Army, continue to gain in number. Brocka led a clandestine expedition into the mountains to film interviews with the NPA, and Arena went with him, at a time when real-life events were becoming as dramatic as a Brocka film.

What is a chat show - a forum for stimulating conversation and the exchange of ideas or just an economical way of filling the airwaves? Gus Macdonald becomes host for an evening and invites his guests Russell Harty , David Frost and Kenneth Williams to discourse on the art of the chat show. Simon Dee talks about the legendary moment when he was given his own chat show and Jackie Collins sets off on the long promotional haul, knocking off one chat show after another. And Quentin Crisp and Malcolm Muggeridge consider why we should want to watch strangers talking on television.

Twenty-one years after his death Evelyn Waugh looms larger than ever over the English literary scene. In the course of three programmes Arena uses the testimony of his friends and foes to explore the man and his work. The first programme covers the period of his early life and his arrival in his 20s on the literary horizon with the publication of Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies. Among those appearing are the dedicatees of his first two novels, Sir Harold Acton and Lady Diana Mosley, and fellow writers Anthony Powell, Peter Quennell and Graham Greene.

The second of three programmes looks at Evelyn Waugh 's most productive period as a novelist, journalist, travel-writer and man of action. His exotic journeys from the coronation of Haile Selassie in Addis Ababa to the deepest jungles of Brazil are recalled by fellow correspondent, William Deedes. His commanding officers in the war, Lord Lovat and Sir Fitzroy Maclean assess the disastrous military career which ironically produced his romantic masterpiece, Brideshead Revisited. This is the period in which Waugh's finest work was published. John Mortimer , Kingsley Amis and Graham Greene consider his literary achievement.

Last of three programmes. When Waugh died on Easter Sunday 21 years ago his friend Graham Greene felt 'as if one's commanding officer were dead'. During his last 20 years he retreated from the outside world, increasingly obsessed with mortality - at the same time cultivating the cantankerous personality that became his abiding image. With contributions from his priest, neighbours and family, Arena looks behind the public mask of Evelyn Waugh.

by Leslie Megahey A story of intrigue and romance in 16th-century Venice. Starring Paul McGann, Simon Callow, Michael Gough, Diana Quick When Cariani the painter falls in love with the beautiful girl who receives mysterious visitors in the rooms below, he is drawn into a web of danger and deceit. With Louiza Livingstone, Robert Goodman and the voice of Charles Gray as the storyteller A Screenplay/Arena presentation

Art Spiegelman is one of America's leading comic-strip artists. Earlier this year he created a stir with Maus, a novel in strip form. Maus tells of a young Jewish couple who are arrested and transported to Auschwitz - where Spiegelman's parents endured and survived the war. The Jews are depicted as mice and the SS guards as cats. The story is told by an elderly mouse to his young son who asks him about his life. The unlikely, perhaps provocative, form of the comic-strip has produced an extremely moving book which has had huge success on both sides of the Atlantic. Tonight's film follows Spiegelman's journey with his wife and child to Auschwitz for the first time.

The first of two programmes featuring the work of a major figure in contemporary literature and journalism. In three decades, reporting from Latin America, Africa and the Far East, Kapuscinski has witnessed 27 revolutions. His portraits of Haile Selassie and the Shah of Iran, The Emperor and Shah of Shahs, have brought him worldwide recognition. As a prominent Solidarity member, he has been unable to write for the Polish media since the imposition of martial law. He has chosen to remain in Warsaw and is now working on the last volume of his trilogy on 20th-century despotism -Amin.

Arena presents JONATHAN MILLER 'S acclaimed production for the Royal Court Theatre of RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI's play. Adapted for the stage and television by MICHAEL HASTINGS and JONATHAN MILLERTranslated by WILLIAM R. BRAND and KATARZYNA MROCZKOWSKA-BRAND Haile Selassie , Emperor of Ethiopia, was one of the great enigmatic figures of the century. Five actors bring to life memories of the corruption and double-dealing at the emperor's palace just before his final overthrow.

Today is Shrove Tuesday, in French, Mardi Gras , and tonight is the night before Lent. While the British celebrate with pancakes, the Latin world explodes in a riot of music and spectacle. Tonight, live for the first time, Arena presents the world's three biggest carnivals. At 10.45pm the programme moves to BBC1.

Continued from BBC2. From the Toulouse Cafe in the heart of downtown New Orleans where the day's t festivities climax with the cream of New Orleans rhythm and blues. One last burst of indulgence before forty days of abstinence.

The flamenco of southern Spain is more than music. It's the soul of a culture and its roots go back to the 15th century, when gypsies travelled to Spain via Asia and North Africa. Today the real flamenco is kept alive by the gypsy families of Andalucia. Through marriages, baptisms and fiestas, the new generation of Andalucian gypsies learns flamenco from its elders. In the second of two films, Arena travels further through Andalucia from Jerez to Cadiz, where the journey ends with a gathering of gypsy families for a grand flamenco fiesta.

Each season Arena invites a distinguished figure in the arts to direct a film. This year's guest director is John Byrne, painter and author of Tutti Frutti. In this diverse and inventive autobiography, Byrne travels from his youth, through his art school years to the period of his stage and TV plays, and on to his death sometime in the future. With him is Robbie Coltrane as himself and as a shamus invented by Byrne, who discovers there are as many aspects to the author as there are actors playing him.

Randy Travis is the hottest new singer on the country music scene today. In June of this year he played his first British concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Arena filmed him and tonight Rhythms of the World presents the best in 'back to basics' country music. Tonight's performance showcases some classic country songs and includes his American hit singles, 1982, On the Other Hand and Diggin' Up Bones.

From Dundalk to Dungannon, Ballycastle to Belfast, Field Day, Ireland's foremost touring theatre company, journeys past checkpoints and critics with Brian Friel's controversial new play Making History. Arena follows the trail of actor Stephen Rea and fellow Field Day directors, Seamus Heaney and Tom Paulin, on a personal mission to investigate the distortion of Ireland's history by the work of poets, priests and politicians.

Arena presents two films by award-winning director Georg Troller , made for West German television's leading arts programme Personenbeschreibung. Sir Laurens van der Post is the subject of the first film. Known in the popular press as a friend and mentor of Prince Charles, Sir Laurens has devoted his life to drawing the world's attention to the plight of Africa's threatened tribes. The second film is a portrait of Texan criminal Albert Sample whose autobiography Racehoss tells the harrowing story of his 16-year sentence for armed robbery in a notorious Texan prison and subsequent rehabilitation.

Arena continues its centenary celebration of the jukebox with a special edition of one of the original pop music programmes. Juke Box Jury is 30 years old and was essential weekend viewing for every pop music fan throughout the 60s. David Jacobs is back in the chair spinning this week's new releases in the famous Rock-ola. On the special jury for the music world this evening are Pete Murray and Dusty Springfield, who were regular panellists on the original series, and newcomers Phil Collins and Sarah Jane Morris.

In 1938 jazz legend and international star Slim Gaillard went to Hollywood to appear in Hellzapoppin: and then war broke out. Gaillard became one of America's first black bomber pilots; this week he recalls that profound and traumatic experience. With the help of Van Morrison he re-enacts a famous encounter with his beat disciple, novelist Jack Kerouac; he settles an old score with Little Richard; appears on America's craziest chat show; and meets the peanut that went to the moon. An 'Arena' special

This week Slim Gaillard cooks dinner for his old friend Dizzy Gillespie. They discuss the English language and their contributions to it — 'bebop' and 'Vout-o-reenee'. They also recall working with Charlie Parker and conjure up the ghosts of the other great names of 52nd Street in its jazz heyday. And from Hollywood - memories of the days when the likes of Bob Hope and Marlene Dietrich were swapping items from Gaillard's Vout-o-reenee dictionary.

Some people see the pig as representing dirt, sloth and obesity; others view it with affection. In this film we see them all: farmyard pigs, performing pigs, pigs as pets, piggy banks, pigs on film - in all its many rotund forms.

A film version of Heathcote Williams 's epic poem, an impassioned hymn of praise to one of nature's most magnificent creatures, and a lament at man's folly of hunting it to near extinction. The poem is read by its author, intercut with extraordinary film of elephants, and accompanied by a specially composed soundtrack from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

The animals in wildlife films have always been vying for attention with that eccentric breed - the animal presenter. This medley of classic clips of wildlife films from the last 50 years celebrates the naive enthusiasm of these rare creatures and charts the changing attitudes to animals on television.

In the 1920s a middle-aged spinster went to buy a yard of ribbon and came out with a baby gorilla. He was the first gorilla to survive captivity. His uncanny intelligence and versatility became legendary, inspiring King Kong stories. But he came to a tragic end when he was shipped to the Barnum and Bailey circus in New York where he pined for his owner and then 'died of a broken heart'.

What does Sam get up to when he's left on his own all day? This verite portrait looks at an ordinary day in the mysterious life of a very ordinary dog.

Novelist Julian Bames, philosopher Nicholas Humphrey and French historian Dr Michel Rousseau help to uncover one of the most bizarre chapters in criminal history: the judicial prosecution and capital punishment of animals throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and beyond.

Speciesism, vivisection, vegetarianism, farming, sport, zoos, circuses and pets will be some of the topics discussed in a live debate chaired by Donald MacCormick at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Writer Germaine Greer and philosophers Tom Regan and Mary Warnock are among the speakers who debate the motion: 'The animal kingdom needs a bill of rights'.

The phenomenal career of the Rolling Stones has taken them from being the bad boys of rock 'n' roll to becoming proteges of the establishment. They now tell their own story ... The programme includes previously unseen performances from the Stones's own archive and is introduced and narrated by the band themselves.

Oblomov is a slob. Even Gorbachev is said to have denounced him from the podium: 'We must stamp out the Oblomovs from our society.' The lazy aristocrat of Goncharov's 19th-century masterpiece has become a Russian folk-hero. After 100 years asleep, Oblomov is re-awoken in modem-day Russia - this time as a lazy party bureaucrat. Perestroika, quite frankly, bores him. He was more at home in Brezhnev's 'Period of Stagnation'. Oblomov's foul-tempered chauffeur, Zachar, narrates this bizarre tragi-comedy: for the story of Oblomov's vain attempts to raise himself from his bed is the story of Russia. Filmed on location in the Soviet Union.

The great Italian film director, who died in 1977, was the founder of 'neo-realism'. Following the international success of his films dealing with the Second World War - Rome, Open City and Paisa - he turned in the 50s to psychological drama. His affair and subsequent marriage to Ingrid Bergman created a major scandal. Eventually he abandoned the cinema for a series of documentaries on historical figures as part of a great mission to educate the world. Bearing witness to his genius will be his daughter Isabella, son Gil, directors the Taviani brothers, Carlo Lizzani and Lindsay Anderson. There is also rare footage of Rossellini.

Traditional Jewish humour flourished in adversity. Religious persecution and life in the ghetto nurtured its own kind of bitter comedy which, in 20th-century America, has developed into a recognisable and acclaimed style of humour. Arena examines this rich heritage of comic genius, and includes contributions from Milton Berle , Jackie Mason , Joan Rivers and Billy Crystal.

Salif Keita - the golden voice of Mali - is one of the first African world superstars. He can trace his lineage directly back more than 700 years to its founder, the warrior king Sundiata Keita. Salif Keita's story is an exceptional one - not only for breaking away from these traditions, but for overcoming the stigma of being born albino. Arena returns with Salif to his village birthplace in Djoliba, through the insidiously beautiful surrounding plains and to the mystical cliffs of Bandiagara - all sources of his underlying deep spirituality and his haunting music.

Actor and director Spike Lee joins actress Debbie Allen on a journey in search of the perfect vocal performance. They travel through Brooklyn as different groups duel, jam and rehearse together, without the benefit of an instrument other than their own voices, culminating in an all-star a cappella concert. The film, the directorial debut of cinematographer Ernest Dickerson , features contemporary vocal groups such as the Persuasions and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Now in her 80s, Peggy Ramsay is the most powerful and unconventional play agent in Britain. She started her agency in the mid-50s in a converted brothel in the West End and has been responsible for the careers of over 70 writers including David Mercer, Robert Bolt, John Arden, David Rudkin, Edward Bond, Willy Russell and Joe Orton. Ramsay was played by Vanessa Redgrave in the Orton biopic Prick Up Your Ears. This film shows her working with playwrights David Hare, Caryl Churchill, Stephen Poliakoff and Christopher Hampton, follows her on an outing to the Barbican and taking a trip to Scarborough to visit Alan Ayckbourn.

They call themselves the 'Children'. By day they are cycle-messengers, assistants in department stores, prostitutes or unemployed; by night they are members of clubs or houses with such exotic names as the House of Chanel, the House of St Laurent and the House of Ninja. They gather together on the streets and in each other's apartments, where they do battle - not by violence, but by their dancing and the clothes they wear. Arena follows a band of devotees as they dance from House to House, in styles such as the acrobatic dance form 'Vogueing', competing furiously for trophies and fame for a day.

On 4 July 1967, Private Raymond Griffiths was killed in Vietnam. He was 19 years old - the average age of US combat troops in the war. He was one of more than 30,000 American service personnel killed or wounded in eight years of vicious fighting, which also saw the deaths of a million and a half Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. This powerful documentary tells the stories of the GI's in their own words, words they wrote home in letters from Vietnam. They were young and, like all soldiers, they wanted to return home alive.

Niccolo Machiavelli 's infamous The Prince is a short book about power - how to get it and how to hang on to it. But if 'he' were changed to 'she' throughout, would Machiavelli's masterpiece provide an insight into the remarkable success of a considerable number of women today, not least this century's longest surviving Prime Minister? Arena tests this phenomenon against the world's greatest power manual and wonders what has happened to feminism at the end of the 80s.

Krzysztof Kieslowski is the foremost director to have emerged in Poland since Andrzej Wadja. His two most recent features, A Short Film about Killing and A Short Film about Love, shocked western audiences and critics with their pessimism and brutality. Shot during the final months of communist rule they are actually two in an extraordinary cycle of films made for Polish television. Each uses one of the Ten Commandments to explore the morality of Polish society - their subjects range from suicide to stamp-collecting, from incest to home computers. Arena talks to Kieslowski about these parables of contemporary life and his role as a modern-day Moses.

Paris's love affair with the black world stretches from the Cubists' discovery of African sculpture at the beginning of the century to the present day appreciation of rap and African popular music. This programme celebrates black culture and its lasting contribution to the artistic life of a great city. Appearing in the film: Louis Armstrong , Brigitte Bardot, Sydney Bechet, Jean Cocteau and many others.

Tonight's programme looks at the Soviet cinema since perestroika and examines the work of some of its most important film directors who are working again after years of enforced silence. Through film clips and interviews, Arena discusses the work and problems of directors Rustam Khamdamov, Kira Muratova and Sergei Paradzhanov , and one of the first westerners to work on a Russian production, French film star Jeanne Moreau. Will they be able to sell their concept to a population brought up on undemanding mass cinema?

When Lenin told the newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain that its survival depended on having a daily paper, he could not have forseen that after 60 years of heroic struggle the Daily Worker, renamed in 1966 the Morning Star, would come perilously close to extinction because today's leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, had cancelled half its subscription. Beatrix Campbell, who worked on the paper for ten years during the turbulent 60s and 70s, talks to the people who sustained it during its glorious triumphs and constant crises, and in its pages finds a unique reflection of the history and culture of Britain.

A new musical, Township Fever, is about to open on Broadway. Written by Mbongeni Ngema , the co-author of Woza Albert , it is vibrant and funny, but also quite shocking and controversial - because it goes right into the heart of the violence in South Africa. This Screenplay/Arena film explores how the musical was created and features striking extracts from it. A Distant Horizon production in association with BBCtv

Tonight Arena brings you an evening of short films and a debate devoted to that most universal of subjects, food. Spitting Image has created your hosts, Meat and Two Veg. From their kitchen/diner they talk to an a la carte menu of delicacies including Colin the Couch Potato and Russell Sprout.

Today's hypermarket is an Aladdin's cave compared to the grocery store of 30 years ago. Food Night looks at the ever-increasing gulf between what appears on the supermarket shelf and the original ingredients.

A salute to four great thinkers. If Rossini had not preferred food to music there would have been no Tornados Rossini. If Nellie Melba had not become so fat through eating too many of the Peach Melbas created for her by Escoffier, he would not have had to remedy the situation by inventing Melba Toast. If he hadn't lost his all on that last turn of the cards, would the Earl of Sandwich have found inspiration for a snack? Today, would a champion of the people like Garibaldi have to share the honours with a biscuit called the 'Mandela'? Bernard Bresslaw, aided by David Troughton and Christopher Ryan, brings these food heroes to life.

Food has had a part to play in religion, politics, science and war, and throughout history has underlined the social divide between prince and peasant. Today food remains as divisive as ever.

Some lessons in manners from the silver screen - Five Easy Pieces, Tampopo, Oliver Twist and more.

This film explores the application of kosher dietary laws which have helped to preserve the separate identity of the Jewish people.

Louisiana State Penitentiary recently released a list of the last meals ordered by prisoners about to be executed. One man, whose crime was shooting a grocery store attendant, requested Jalapeno peppers, two boxes of Frosties and a pint of milk. Food Night examines the custom of using food as a final consolation and last rite for those condemned to death.

With the help of potato experts from all over the world Food Night pays homage to this nutritious, delicious, maligned and sometimes despised vegetable - the paradoxical potato.

A chance to sample some favourites from the kitchens of such legends as Fanny Cradock, Zena Skinner and Delia Smith. Director Sarah Mortimer

Mealworms served in a cherry tomato, grasshoppers rolled in bacon - these are just a few of the nourishing dishes served up in this film which explores repulsion and revulsion in food taste.

Left to your own devices, what do you eat, when do you eat it and how much of it do you eat?

As Christmas approaches, time to contemplate self-denial.

As the evening's climax, Arena assembles a forum of distinguished politicians, economists, nutritionists, moralists and senders and receivers of aid to debate the international politics of food.

A spectacular musical celebration of life, capturing evolution in all its glorious diversity, and the rhythms of nature in all its beauty, delight, and horror. From the raging furnace of volcanoes to frozen glaciers, deserts and humid rainforests, Lifepulse is a dramatic visual journey, starting in primeval chaos and ending with the rise of the primates and of man, who now threatens the environment that nurtured him. A specially composed soundtrack by the Startled Insects is enhanced by the use of natural sounds.

Nelson Mandela, since his release, has become one of the most famous people in the world. Everyone has heard of the leader, but Mandela the man remains an enigma. For the first time he talks about his life and times from a personal standpoint. Arena invited Arthur Miller, veteran of half a century of meditation on moral and social issues, to Soweto and to talk to Mandela. In the intimate setting of his home, they discuss Mandela's life and their hopes and fears for the future of South Africa and the world.

Derek Jarman is a uniquely British outsider: a painter, film-maker and a self-appointed enfant terrible with a paradoxical affection for tradition. He makes films as a painter or poet, rather than as a conventional film-maker; his subject matter includes Shakespeare's Tempest, a critique of Great Britain in Jubilee year and Sebastiane, an openly gay interpretation of the saint's martyrdom. The programme includes clips from all his work, including his latest film, The Garden.

Kiefer is Germany's most controversial and reclusive artist. He is also its most successful. The millions his work commands in the auction houses and his popularity with collectors belies the sombreness of the subject matter - Germany's past. Through Wagnerian legend, historical conjecture and ancient mythology, Kiefer offers a personal view of Germany today that is both an exorcism and a warning. Never before filmed, Kiefer has collaborated with Arena in an unusual portrait in which he sets out to 'disinter some corpses from Germany's past'.

On 3 February 1967, Joe Meek, composer of Telstar and pioneer independent producer, shot his landlady and then himself. With Humphrey Lyttelton, Screaming Lord Sutch, Heinz, Jonathan King, John Leyton and Jess Conrad, Arena charts this Ortonesque tale.

Rocky is the name of American artist Robert Rauschenberg's pet turtle. It is also the name of an epic and visionary project which in the last eight years has taken Rauschenberg around the world a dozen times: Roci - the Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange. The resulting work is shown in a huge exhibition, ending in a retrospective in Washington in spring of this year.

December 1990: a rusty ship drifts silently in the North Sea. As the Government and its Broadcasting Bill close in for the kill, Radio Caroline could be silenced for ever. For Ronan O'Rahilly, its founder, it was always part party, part social revolution. Today Caroline is kept alive by a group of devotees called the Caroline Movement. To them the ship is a temple, to visit, to photograph, to dream of working on. Meanwhile O'Rahilly plans his next move.

This profile of Keith Waterhouse follows him through his hectic diary. As a columnist for the Daily Mail he reports from the Conservative conference in Bournemouth and the Labour conference in Blackpool, where he slips away to become a tram driver. As the playwright of Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell he tutors the real Jeffrey Bernard in the delicate art of making eggs fly into beer glasses. As a novelist he does research in Haywards Heath. And while one play ends, another one - Bookends - opens in Brighton. He also finds time for his favourite hobby, lunch.

It has been said that the English hoard words like misers and the Irish spend them like sailors. Tonight's Arena presents three great Irish masters of the English language, Flann O'Brien, Patrick Kavanagh and Brendan Behan. Anthony Cronin, poet, friend and fellow-drinker, recalls their genius and their wild exploits in Dublin.

For more than two decades, Van Morrison has been fusing different musical influences, creating a style of his own. In this programme he duets with Bob Dylan and plays harmonica with blues legend John Lee Hooker. He leads the Danish Radio Big Band, sings with Irish folk group the Chieftains and relives the heyday of 60s r 'n' b with the Georgie Fame Band.

This one-man show based on the life of Oscar Wilde was the jewel in the crown for Irish actor Michael MacLiammoir 's career. The programme was first shown on St Patrick's Day 1964.

Roci Rocky is the name of American artist Robert Rauschenberg 's pet turtle. It is also the name of an epic and visionary project which in the last eight years has taken Rauschenberg around the world a dozen times: Roci - the Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange. The resulting work is shown in a huge exhibition, ending in a retrospective in Washington in spring of this year.

When Kenneth Anger first published his classic expose of Hollywood's best-kept secrets and scandals, it was immediately banned. The underground film-maker struck a raw nerve in 'tinsel town'. Tonight he goes for a 'walk on the wild side' with Marianne Faithfull, the man who embalmed Marilyn Monroe and American comic Mike McShane who plays the god of Hollywood. Irreverent but affectionate, Anger reveals the origins of the casting couch, why James Dean was 'the human ashtray' and the truth behind Fatty Arbuckle's public disgrace.

Top US crime writer Elmore Leonard 's street-wise characters range from violent hoodlums in and around Detroit to low-life hustlers on Florida's Gold Coast. Arena travels with him as he visits some of the colourful and contrasting people and places that have been the inspiration for his bestselling books, meeting homicide cops, a Hollywood producer, a circuit court judge and the mermaids of Weeki Wachee.

In the last of the current series of Arena, musical performance artist Laurie Anderson presents an examination of mankind's obsession with its own image. For thousands of years artists and scientists have attempted to unravel the enigmas of the human face. The disembodied head is a symbol of humanity, conveyor of information and portrayer of emotion. Now modern computer technology may be on the verge of unlocking some of the mysteries of the human face.

A show as big as the Lone Star State this is an epic voyage through the wildest state in the union - from the honkytonks and dancehalls to the hill country and burning deserts; from big cities to towns so tiny they're not even on the map. A departure from the style of Arena's previous TV nights, this programme takes the form of one continuous film with three intermissions. The guide for the evening is Texas's only Jewish retired country singer turned detective - Kinky Friedman. In the spirit of his mystery novels, he goes on a quest deep into the heart of Texas to find out what makes it so darn different from everywhere else.

Brutalised at home and school, John Healy drinks a promising boxing career into the "grass arena" - the savage community of vagrant alcoholics. He drifts towards certain death, until a fellow prisoner teaches him chess. His striking new talent leads him to compete in championships where he plays for recognition and a chance to belong. This film won the Michael Powell Award for Best Feature Film at last year's Edinburgh Film Festival and the Grand Prix at the Dinard Film Festival in France.

The first of a special three-part presentation in which American film director Billy Wilder discusses his career with German film maker Volker Schlondorff. From Marlene Dietrich to Marilyn Monroe. Humphrey Bogart to Gary Cooper , Wilder has directed the film industry's greatest legends. Normally a private man, tonight he reminisces about his early years in Hollywood with fellow emigres Fritz Lang and his mentor, Ernst Lubitsch (the programme's title is derived from a sign in Wilder's office which asks: "Lubitsch, how did you do it?"), and describes working with Dietrich on his emotional return to post-war Berlin.

Second of three in-depth conversations with the film director and writer Billy Wilder. He recalls his memories of the great Hollywood stars - "Mae West walked out of the door all white gold and feathers. She looked like a locomotive." He talks about working with silent film star Gloria Swanson on Sunset Boulevard, the tensions of working with Humphrey Bogart and the consummate artistry of Gary Cooper.

Last of a special three-part presentation in which American director Billy Wilder discusses his career. He remembers working with Marilyn Monroe on Some Like It Hot "With Monroe life was a surprise - sometimes she knew eight pages of dialogue by heart, sometimes she had a total block." He discusses the craft of screenwriting, the problems of working with Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie, and the creative pleasure of improvising with his lifelong collaborator, I.A.L. Diamond.

A portrait of the controversial American film director, Oliver Stone, whose work often arouses the fiercest passions in both supporters and critics. In a revealing interview, Stone looks back on his life and work, reminiscing about his difficult childhood, the effect of his parents' divorce and his decision to travel to Vietnam, first as a teacher and then as a soldier. Featuring clips from his movies and film of him at work on scenes in JFK - his latest film, about the assassination of President Kennedy.

On 14 February 1989 Salman Rushdie was sentenced to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Tonight, on the third anniversary of the fatwa, a gathering of international writers and artists re-asserts the surpassing value of freedom of expression.

In 1983, David Hampton was arrested for pretending to be the son of actor Sidney Poitier and conning his way into the homes of some of New York's most powerful and influential families. Seven years later this case became the inspiration for the critically acclaimed Broadway play Six Degrees of Separation. Now Hampton is using Richard Golub , one of New York's best-known lawyers, to sue the playwright and the play's producers for millions in a precedent-setting case to see if anyone retains the rights to their own life.

This film asks how the culture of a country survives amid gunfire. Ivan Rabuzin , the 71-year-old Croatian artist, says his paintings stand as accusations. "They show an image of earthly heaven and they are based on the real world in which I feel happy, in which I paint. But if that real world is being destroyed, then how can I make any links to the ideal, the earthly heaven?" While Rabuzin paints, other artists from the performing and visual arts have joined the fighting in more dramatic ways.

"I'll either be famous or infamous," declared the controversial German painter who died in 1969. His subjects range from tranquil landscapes to frenzied sex murders, from brutalised war criminals to religious allegories. In his lifetime he found little favour on either side of his divided country. He was hauled before the courts on charges of obscenity, and his paintings were burned by the Nazis as being degenerate, and yet he has more recently been hailed as the "last great German artist of our times". Arena examines the work of an artist who, in the new Germany, is seen as both an influential and unifying figure.

Refused entry to America from China in 1958 because of the embargo on "communist goods", the giant panda Chi-Chi came to London Zoo - a constant object of media attention and public adoration. Eight years later she was sent on a diplomatic mission to Moscow to mate with the Russian panda An-An, though this attempt to start a thaw of the Cold War failed on day one when she hit An-An. Among those recalling this bizarre tale of sex, spies and the media are Desmond Morris, Sir Denis Forman and Edward Heath, who remembers his own brush with pandas when he was prime minister.

Tales of the City first appeared in the 70s as a daily column in the San Francisco Chronicle. Armistead Maupin's stories about life in San Francisco as seen through the eyes of a zany cast of characters had such a massive following that he adapted them into a series of six bestselling novels. Tonight's film examines Maupin's varied and controversial career, including his lifelong involvement in gay rights. It also discovers some of the people who provided the inspiration for his characters and visits the city's walkways and backwaters that are the setting for his novels.

A self-portrait of photographer and film maker Robert Frank. Often called the "eyes of the Beats", Frank's work spans 45 years from his influential book of photographs The Americans in the 1950s to a controversial Rolling Stones documentary in 1972 and a recent photographic assignment in Beirut. For this new film, Frank took personal friends, actors and a film crew to Harlem to create a dramatised exploration of his idea that we all carry a gallery of people in our heads. He believes that a portrait of them is a portrait of the person who chooses to remember them.

Three films which take a journey through the rich musical heritage of Argentina. The story begins just south of Buenos Aires in the Pampas. This is the land of the gaucho - the solitary hero on his horse, the symbol of Argentinian identity. Today the gaucho might seem to be more a figure of legend than reality, yet just a few miles from the Argentinian capital men and horses keep this tradition alive. With guitar and songs the gauchos continue to tell stories of their lives, their horses and their land.

Few activities in modern life can rival sport for creating excitement, passion and commitment. Arena takes a look at how the tensions and glories of sporting life are turned into prose by the sportswriter. Hugh Mcllvanney, many times winner of the Sportswriter of the Year Award, and the only sportswriter so far to be named Journalist of the Year, covers three major sporting events - a world title fight in Las Vegas, an England football international and the Cheltenham Gold Cup - and investigates the essence of good sports writing.

In her first television profile, Linda McCartney talks about her life in photography and, with husband Paul, about the difficulties of being married to a Beatle and how she has coped over the years with a mixed press. She is probably better known for being the wife of a Beatle and a committed vegetarian than for the photographic career she's followed for 30 years. But in the late 60s she was a pioneer of early rock photography and when Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison or the Beatles wanted pictures taken, they would ask for Linda Eastman , as she then was.

Arena's 1993 season opens with this three-part exploration of the life and work of the enigmatic writer. Greene's obsessions with the seedy world of love, sex, betrayal, disloyalty and failure influenced millions of readers over 60 years. With extracts read by Sir Alec Guinness. England Made Me (1904-39) Tonight's film examines the failures and successes of Greene's early career; investigates his conversion to Catholicism; and explores his intense but unhappy marriage. It includes the first interview with his widow Vivien.

Disloyalty, secrecy and spying fascinated Greene both in his work and in his private life. Tonight's film charts the hidden years of his life when his marriage broke down and he became involved in a series of intense and turbulent affairs. It begins in 1940 when Kim Philby recruited him as a spy. There is some rare archive footage of Greene in the Belgian Congo, an interview with Kim Philby , and contributions from his widow Vivien, Jocelyn Rickards , Auberon Waugh and John Ie Carre.

Last of the biographical films, with extracts read by Sir Alec Guinness. A World of My Own (1961-91) Passionately promoting the link between Catholicism and communism, defending Kim Philby , supporting guerrillas in central America or fighting the Mafia in Nice - these were some of the more controversial activities Greene was involved in during his last 30 years. With contributions from Jeffrey Bernard , Koo Stark , John le Carre , Anthony Burgess, Vivien Greene, and interviews with his confessor Father Leopoldo Duran and his companion Yvonne Cloetta.

In the 1980s American artist J S G Boggs stunned the art world by holding an exhibition of banknotes, drawn by himself. In one go, he broke moral, artistic and legal taboos-counterfeiting money, poking fun at the art world, and raising the question, "Is this art?" The film follows this controversial artist on a journey funded by his hand-painted banknotes through railway stations, supermarkets, restaurants, wine bars and art galleries, as he attempts to evade arrest and discover the real value of money - and art.

For three decades the Soviet Union's obsession with space stirred the soul of the nation like a secular religion - from the first space star Yuri Gagarin to the sad saga of cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev who circled the planet for almost a year, a helpless spectator of the momentous events back home on earth. Exploring the spiritual force of this grand obsession, Arena talks to Krikalev and the first cosmonauts, and ventures into the world of relics, icons and the memorabilia of the Soviet space venture.

One of China's most successful film directors, Zhang Yimou , talks about his life, his work, and his views on China. The stunning photography and quintessential "Chineseness" of his films - from Red Sorghum, Judou and Raise the Red Lantern to the forthcoming The Story of QiuJu - have won him enormous acclaim in the west, and yet have been met with harsh censorship in China.

To mark his 60th birthday, and the publication of his new book Operation Shylock, Philip Roth breaks his long silence and talks to Arena about his life, books, and some of the links between the two. Since his outrageous comic novel Portnoy's s Complaint appeared in the late 1960s, Roth's chronicles and comedies of Jewish America have established him as one of the most important writers of his generation. But success has brought hostile criticism and, until now, he has refused every request for a television interview, preferring to present himself in his books in the guise of fictional alter egos.

To the innocent reader, the characters in a work of fiction are the author's inventions. To those in the know, it is often more complicated. Arena investigates the effect novels can have on those people who do see a resemblance between themselves and a fictional character and asks whether or not it is "entirely coincidental".

Chronicling New York low and high life, Weegee's photographs have often shocked the world. His wife, Wilma Wilcox , talks about the man behind the myth.

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp entered a white porcelain object in a New York exhibition. it was a urinal. Arena unearths the origins of this extraordinary story with an account from Duchamp's lover of the time, ceramicist Beatrice Wood.

An Arena special which documents the making of Reitz's second great German epic, The Second Heimat, which begins on BBC2 next Saturday. When Jewish writer Carole Angier watched the original Heimat (recently repeated on BBC2), she was so moved she wrote to its creator; Reitz responded that she had understood his work better than anyone. She later saw the making of his next epic, the 26-hour Second Heimat. Tonight's programme is a record of Angier's extraordinary experiences witnessing two years of writing and four years of filming.

Brenda Fassie is South Africa's answer to Madonna. A black singer for black people, she is streetwise, outrageous and aiming to be an international star. With her new album I'm Not a Bad Girl, this Arena special shows Brenda Fassie in performance and meets the musicians and media-manipulators working with her in an ever-changing South Africa.

Ian McKellen ruminates on the distinct eras of radio broadcasting, characterised as Shakespeare's seven ages of man, with the aid of Professor Asa Briggs.

Alistair Cooke, whose weekly epistle has been broadcast on radio since 1946, explains why it is the best medium for him.

The story of early radio's method of broadcasting live football, referring to a numbered grid - published in the Radio Times - on which listeners followed the action.

Family Sunday meals conjure up for many Family Favourites, Round the Home and The Billy Cotton Band Show.

On just one estate in east London there are five pirate stations, battling to stay on air.

Does TV steal radio's best comedy ideas? Included in the debate are Frank Muir, Denis Norden, Armando Iannucci and the voice of Spike Milligan.

Harold Listings, a frustrated radio technician, takes revenge.

Nasa scientists are using giant radio antennae to pick up communications from ET.

Dr Carl Dolmetsch finds out why the pips changed pitch.

The tragic story of the lone yachtsman and his radio.

Live on TV for the first time, Fisher, German Bight, Dogger.

Concluding BBC2's Arena Radio Night, a film drama starring James Whitmore, Nancy Davis (later Reagan). Joe and Mary Smith are shaken one night when they hear what seems to be the voice of God coming from their radio.

An exploration of the phenomenal popularity of L Frank Baum 's famous children's story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written in 1900. About 20 film versions of the story have been made (including a 1925 one with Oliver Hardy), and the programme includes clips from a selection of these, plus the first TV showing of Baum's own 1908 film and missing footage from the Judy Garland movie.

In the 1980s Vladimir Pozner , once dubbed "Ivan the Telegenic", became the second most celebrated communist in the west. Carrying Gorbachev's message to western television screens, he intrigued and troubled millions of viewers. But who is he, this unrepentant propagandist and ex-Soviet correspondent who is now a talk-show host in America? Arena follows him over a dramatic year and explores the contradictions in his extraordinary life.

The new stars of ragga and gangster rap - Shabba Ranks, Ice Cube, Public Enemy, Buju Banton - have become as notorious as they are successful. They command huge audiences and record sales but they have been accused of hating women, inciting violence against gays and encouraging the use of guns. Award-winning film maker Isaac Julien is gay and black and he confronts them.

During the 1970s and 1980s Derekjarman kept a Super-8 film diary, chronicling the cultural high life and low life of London. The footage ranges from William Burroughs reading aloud at the nightclub Heaven, to candid behind-the-scenes footage of his most controversial feature films including Jubilee and Sebastiane. The original music is written by his long term collaborator Brian Eno. Glitterbug, his last film, is shown as a tribute to Jarman who died on 19 February.

In 1960 an American film called Primary changed the notion of what a documentary could be, using techniques never before seen on TV. It was made by Robert Drew , whose role in the movement that has become known as cinéma vérité has gone largely unrecognised. Tonight's programme tells his story.

Seventy million Kalashnikov (or AK-47) guns are scattered across the world. It was the Russians' Cold War weapon and is still the first choice of terrorists, guerrillas and mercenaries. Through the story of Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, Arena asks whether the AK-47 is a cultural icon or just a killing machine.

On 1 April 1984 former Motown star Marvin Gaye provoked his father once too often, and was shot dead in his bedroom. It was the tragic finale to an extraordinary series of events in the life of one of the major talents of pop music in the 70s. From being down and out in London in 1980 he had been restored to tentative health, far away from drug dealers, in the Belgian port of Ostend. Video footage of this calm period forms the basis of this bleak documentary - bleak, because all along we know that his final hit Sexual Healing will draw him back to America and death.

The idea that power exists in the remains of heroes and the things they leave behind is the focus of an Arena trilogy broadcast this weekend and introduced by this programme. Religious devotion is not the only source of modern-day relics. Pop stars and politicians achieve cult status, with fans paying huge sums for their memorabilia. The series will investigate three modern-day examples, starting tomorrow night at 7.55pm with Einstein's brain. Tonight's programme attempts to establish the notion of what a relic is.

A film drama set against civil war in Peru. When Ortiz, a professional graverobber, stumbles across the huge golden disc of the ancient sun god Atahualpa lost for years, he sets off for Lima where he hopes to sell it for a high price. Chained to the shield, he looks like a giant firebeetle as he crosses the dramatic mountains in Peru pursued by characters with a special interest in the shield. Spurred on by greed, Ortiz's fate becomes inextricably linked to that of the sun god.

In 1978 Charlie Chaplin 's coffin was stolen from his grave in Vevey, Switzerland, and a large ransom was demanded of his widow Oona. This fictional film inspired by those events follows the east European characters responsible. A Screen Two/Arena collaboration, it is written and directed by award-winning documentary film-maker Paul Pawlikowski.

The author of the stories behind Blade Runner and Total Recall grew up in California at a time when an agricultural idyll was fast being replaced by motorways, shopping stores and junk culture. Philip K Dick drew inspiration for his 42 science-fiction novels and countless short stories from the neighbourhood growing up around him and the advertisements on television.

Robben Island is South Africa's Alcatraz. For three decades Nelson Mandela , Walter Sisulu and hundreds of other political prisoners were held in its maximum security prison for opposing the apartheid regime. Conditions were harsh and prisoners were treated like animals. The island itself has a tragic history as a dumping ground for convicts, lunatics, lepers and enemies of the state. It became a bizarre microcosm of the rest of South African society. In an extraordinary tale of survival, Mandela and his fellow ex-prisoners reveal the strategies with which they transformed life on the island and the vision they created for a new South Africa.

Using herself as the model, American artist Cindy Sherman has produced hundreds of photographs exploring the use of female stereotypes. Most recently she has addressed the theme of sexuality and Aids. Renowned for her secrecy - this is the first documentary on her work - Sherman talks about her influences and reveals her working methods through her video diaries.

Brazil's major slave-trading port for nearly three centuries, Bahia has a black population of over 80 per cent which maintains the legacy of African tradition at every level of daily life. Jana Bokova's vivid film portrait captures the spirit of the Bahian people, their music, culture, and most of all their religion - candomble - a fusion of Catholic and African religious beliefs. The film culminates in the annual celebration of carnival.

Sandra Bernhard 's outrageous one-woman show deals with many normally taboo subjects and controversy runs through her personal life: she was once Madonna's lover and is a lesbian pin-up, but she also posed for Playboy. In this country, however, she is perhaps best known as the bisexual Nancy in the Channel 4 comedy Roseanne. Bringing together archive clips, footage of her sell-out New York show and interviews, this sometimes explicit film explores how Bernhard has become a cult icon of female sexual power.

This Arena special profiles sculptor Louise Bourgeois, who has suddenly become fashionable at the age of 84, and has been chosen to represent America at the Venice Biennale, the world's most prestigious art exhibition.

Arena returns with a three-part special, presenting a film portrait of one of the world's great comic actors, incorporating home movies, film clips and interviews.

The second of a three-part film portrait of one of the world's great comic actors.

The last of a three-part film portrait of one of the world's great comic actors. Tonight's film begins in 1964, with Sellers at the peak of his success. Dr Strangelove and The Pink Panther are filling cinemas throughout the world and his marriage to Britt Ekland is making the headlines. Then it all goes wrong - he nearly dies of a heart attack and his film fortunes nosedive with a series of flops. Sellers's career is rescued ten years later by The Return of the Pink Panther, but his private life is still chaotic, with two more marriages and the constant fear of another heart attack.

In August 1975, the face of British rock music was fundamentally changed: the Sex Pistols were formed. A host of colourful characters, including the Damned's Captain Sensible, Richard Hell, Jerry Nolan from the New York Dolls, and the legendary Bromley Contingent, remember the halcyon days of the movement that influenced a generation.

The passion fans had for his music was matched only by the passion Elvis Presley had for his food. This documentary records his inexhaustible appetite for fast foods, the team he had working around the clock to satisfy his gastronomic excesses, and asks if over-indulgence may have contributed to his death at the age of 42.

What is a nation? From Corsica to Kashmir, from Quebec to Bosnia, violent separatist movements are fighting to form their own nation states. This edition of Arena explores the fabric of national identity, and follows four of the world's leading commentators on the subject - Eric Hobsbawm, Eqbal Ahmad, Desmond Tutu and Maxine Hong Kingston - as each embarks on a personal investigation into the different stories their nations told them.

At 70 years of age, singer Tony Bennett has been dubbed the King of Cool by the MTV-watching generation. Arena reveals the man behind the silky voice as Tony Bennett - civil rights activist, jazz enthusiast, painter and New Yorker - takes a tour around his native city and the world of American music with reporter Reggie Nadelson. Featuring politician Mario Cuomo, painter David Hockney, songwriter Elvis Costello and jazz musician Wynton Marsalis.

The legendary Sid Caesar was one of America's favourite TV stars in the fifties. His writing team, which include Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Neil Simon, was probably the first ever to be assembled in one room. The team recently reunited with Caesar before an audience in Los Angeles, and, here, Hollywood star Gene Wilder, who is currently playing Caesar in Laughter on the 23rd Floor in London's West End, introduces the hilarious meeting.

On 22 October 1995, for the first time, all the world's leaders gathered together in the United Nations in New York to have their photograph taken for the beginning of the UN's 50th anniversary celebration.

A portrait of the Italian film-maker Michelangelo Antonioni , who has directed such films as L'Awentura, which follows immediately, LaNotte and Zabriskie Point. The work of the director is known for its studies of alienation and its experiments with cinematic techniques. In his eighties, Antonioni has recently had a museum open in his honour in Ferrara, Italy- his birthplace.

Sports writer Hugh Mcllvanney presents the first of a trilogy of programmes for the Easter weekend about three great football managers; Matt Busby. Jock Stein and Bill Shankly. Tonight's film takes a look at the early careers of these men, who were born within a few miles of each other in the coal mining district south of Glasgow and who subsequently became folk heroes, known and admired beyond the world of football.

Hugh Mcllvanney presents the second in a trilogy of programmes about three great football managers; Matt Busby , Jock Stein and Bill Shankly. Tonight's film focuses on 1945-60, the period when the three former miners were all to become managers.

Concluding the three-part series presented by sports writer Hugh Mcllvanney about three great football managers; Matt Busby, Jock Stein and Bill Shankly. This film charts the incredible success that these three men brought to their clubs during the sixties and seventies, and examines their later years.

Tonight's programme considers musa sapientum, the fruit of the wise. The Velvet Underground's John Cale tells the story behind Andy Warhol's famous LP cover, Auberon Waugh and John Walters recall their first encounters with the fruit after the war and footballer Brendan Batson considers how they became a symbol of racism hurled from the terraces.

In 1962, before John F Kennedy signed the embargo banning the importation of cigars into America from Cuba, the President ordered 1,200 Havana cigars, according to Pierre Salinger, his former press secretary. Tonight's programme follows the story of the cigar - from the tobacco fields west of the Cuban capital of Havana into the factories where poetry and daily newspapers are read aloud to workers; to Hollywood cigar bars and the gentlemen's haunts of St James's, London. With contributions from actors James Belushi, George Wendt and Peter Weller, plus Lord Grade and politician Kenneth Clarke.

The first of a three-part profile of the writer, composer and actor covers Coward's meteoric rise from suburban south London to the world's highest-paid author by the time he was 30.

Arena explores the rise of the legendary crooner Frank Sinatra from his early family background to overwhelming showbusiness success. Interviews with friends, family and associates reveal a star-studded career in music and film alongside a fascinating private life of four marriages, liaison with the Kennedy family, Las Vegas business interests and an alleged association with the mafia.

The first of a two-part documentary telling the story of Brian Epstein. Gay when homosexuality was illegal, a gambler, shopkeeper and failed actor, he was also the pop king with the Midas touch who, in the sixties, was as well known as the band he managed - the Beatles.

Concluding the two-part profile of the pop manager who brought global success to the Beatles. By the mid-sixties, the group's fame meant Epstein had little time to devote to the other acts under his control. He was also being increasingly lured into a lifestyle fuelled by gambling, sex and drugs. After the Beatles decided in 1966 to stop touring, Epstein began to lose touch with the group whose lives he had organised for five years. He set out to broaden the business interests of his company and bought a historic country mansion in Sussex. But, in August 1967, he was found dead in his London home - killed by a mysterious drug overdose aged just 32.

Newsreel footage from 1962, when Fidel Castro's arrangement with then-Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to install nuclear-weapon sites triggered off the Cuban missile crisis.

Cuba's baseball prowess has been long estabished. Fidel Castro himself was once scouted by a US team, and in 1992 Cuba surpassed even the Americans to win the first Olympic baseball gold medal. With many top Cuban players offered lucrative US contracts, this film shows how the patriotic fervour whipped up by the Cuban national sport has acted as a barometer for the country's political relations with the USA.

Cuba's place in world politics, from mid-sixties to mid-eighties.

Homer swaps jobs with Fidel Castro, who goes to work at the nuclear power plant in Springfield.

The effects of the demise of the dominant political ethos in the east.

Since his death in 1967, the face of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara has stared down from posters and banners around the world, the most reproduced image since the Mona Lisa. This programme, written by Reggie Nadelson, explores the industry he unwittingly spawned.

Cuba's relations with the United States in recent times.

In Salman Rushdie 's new novel The Ground beneath Her Feet. singer Vina Aspara is caught up in an earthquake on Valentine's Day 1989, and never seen again. On that day Rushdie's own life was in unheaval as Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced the fatwa upon him. Rushdie talks to Francine Stock about the novel. There is also an interview with U2 singer Bono, who has based a song around lyrics from the book, and performs it with guitarist the Edge.

The Iron Curtain ran north to south through Europe and divided the world for 50 years. American writer and broadcaster Reggie Nadelson joins former Soviet Union spin doctor Vladimir Pozner in an attempt to retrace the chilling and strange route of history's most astonishing border.

The legendary 18th-century lover has been immortalised in books, films and on television, but are these fictionalised accounts historically accurate? Novelist Josephine Hart investigates the truth behind the many myths surrounding this enigmatic figure, and finds that, during his lifetime, he was famed for much more than sexual exploits. She provides evidence that Casanova was a charming man with a razor wit and fluent in three languages. Not only that, but he was also an astrologer, Freemason, businessman, writer, winner and loser of fortunes, and, last but not least, prison escapee.

In 1957, Jayne Mansfield was riding high as the most photographed woman in the world. Yet, ten years later, she was reduced to stripping in seedy nightclubs to finance a serious alcohol problem and support her five children from three broken marriages.

This second blonde-bombshell profile focuses on Britain's home-grown prototype, Diana Dors. The Rada-trained actress emerged as a sex symbol in the fifties through a run of low-budget British comedies. Hollywood success, however, proved elusive and, as her looks faded, Dors was reduced to cabaret appearances in northern clubs, although a series of cameo roles on stage and celluloid hinted at the talent that might have been.