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Arena

Season 1979 1979
NR

  • 1979-01-22T21:00:00Z on BBC Two
  • 1h 30m
  • 3h (2 episodes)
  • United Kingdom
  • English
  • Documentary
Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. Voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has run since 1 October 1975 with over five hundred episodes made, directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alan Yentob, Roly Keating, Frederick Baker, Volker Schlondorff and Vikram Jayanti. Arena's subjects are a roll-call of the world's best known cultural figures from the 20th and 21st centuries, from singers Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse to academics Edward Said and Eric Hobsbawm, from writers Jean Genet and V S Naipaul to artists Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.

2 episodes

Season Premiere

1979-01-22T21:00:00Z

1979x01 Who Is Poly Styrene?

Season Premiere

1979x01 Who Is Poly Styrene?

  • 1979-01-22T21:00:00Z1h 30m

Film portrait of the New Wave singer-songwriter, Poly Styrene.

Season Finale

1979-03-12T21:00:00Z

1979x13 The Origins Of My Way

Season Finale

1979x13 The Origins Of My Way

  • 1979-03-12T21:00:00Z1h 30m

David Bowie was the first person to write English lyrics to the original tune of what eventually became the global hit, My Way. Claude Francois, a big name in his native France, wrote and performed the original song called, Comme d’habitude which means ‘As Usual.’ It was quite common in the 60s for European hits to be picked up by British or American publishers, who would in turn commission somebody to apply an English lyric to the tune. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Dusty Springfield is a good example, it was originally an Italian hit. The European publisher would make money from the re-version, the Brits and the American publishers would make money, so everybody ate.

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