Arena - Season 42 / Year 2016
Season 42 / Year 2016
Episodes
Loretta Lynn: Still a Mountain Girl
With contributions from her family and fellow musicians, now in her early eighties and still going strong, country music singer-songwriter Loretta Lynn looks back at her life.
All the World's a Screen - Shakespeare on Film
From the silent days of cinema, Shakespeare's plays have often been adapted to the big screen. Film-makers relished his vivid characters and dramatic plots as well as the magic and poetry of his work.
At first the results were patchy, then came Laurence Olivier. With Henry V, made to stir patriotic spirit during the Second World War, he perfectly translated Shakespeare from the stage to the screen. He followed Henry V with Hamlet, and both were smash hits. Olivier led the way for directors as diverse as Orson Welles, Kurosawa, Franco Zeffirelli, Roman Polanski, Baz Luhrmann and Kenneth Branagh.
The Bard's language has been no barrier, with bold versions of his dramas coming out of Russia, Japan, India and many other countries, not to mention Hollywood's free adaptations in genres as diverse as musicals and science fiction. Already over 30 films worldwide have been produced based on Romeo and Juliet alone.
For the first time in a single documentary, Arena explores the rich, global history of Shakespeare in the cinema, with a treasure trove of film extracts and archival interviews with their creators.
1966 - 50 Years Ago Today
Based on Jon Savage's book 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded, Arena marks the year pop music and popular culture ripped up the rule book in articulate, instinctive and radical new ways. This was the year of Jonathan Miller's Alice in Wonderland, Morgan - A Suitable Case for Treatment, and the year that Strawberry Fields Forever was recorded. Television was still in black and white, but the world outside was bursting with colour and controversy. In America, in London, in Amsterdam, in Paris, revolutionary ideas slow-cooking since the late 1950s reached boiling point. In popular culture and the mass media, 1966 was a year of restless experimentation and the search for new forms of expression - particularly in pop music. This film takes viewers back to that moment in a vivid celebration of the music, films and TV that shaped the 1960s.
The Roundhouse - The People's Palace
Documentary telling the tragicomic rollercoaster story of a unique venue. On October 15th 1966, the Roundhouse in north London hosted its first gig - the launch of radical newspaper International Times. The audience included Paul McCartney and Marianne Faithfull, along with 3,000 others trying desperately to get in. The result was a glorious shambles. Since then, virtually every big name in rock and alternative theatre has played there. Today it's as vibrant as ever, continuing to attract big names and full houses and running an array of outreach and youth programmes enabling young people to express themselves in the arts.
Recently Updated Shows
Wednesday
Smart, sarcastic and a little dead inside, Wednesday Addams investigates a murder spree while making new friends — and foes — at Nevermore Academy.
Canada's Drag Race
Competing for the title of Canada's Next Drag Superstar, and a $100,000 grand prize, Canada's Drag Race tracks Canadian drag artists as they vie for the title of "Canada's Next Drag Superstar." Each episode tests their limits by having them compete in singing, dancing, acting, impersonation, design, and improvisation challenges. Competitors are eliminated until one queen is left standing with the crown, scepter, and coveted title. Throughout their journey to the crown, the queens showcase the importance of celebrating everyone's Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent.
Doc
Doc centers on the hard-charging, brilliant Dr. Amy Larsen, Chief of Internal and Family Medicine at Westside Hospital in Minneapolis. After a brain injury erases the last eight years of her life, Amy must navigate an unfamiliar world where she has no recollection of patients she's treated, colleagues she's crossed, the soulmate she divorced, the man she now loves and the tragedy that caused her to push everyone away. She can rely only on her estranged 17-year-old daughter, whom she remembers as a 9-year-old, and a handful of devoted friends, as she struggles to continue practicing medicine, despite having lost nearly a decade of knowledge and experience.
The Rookie
The Rookie is inspired by a true story. John Nolan is the oldest rookie in the LAPD. At an age where most are at the peak of their career, Nolan cast aside his comfortable, small town life and moved to L.A. to pursue his dream of being a cop. Now, surrounded by rookies twenty years his junior, Nolan must navigate the dangerous, humorous and unpredictable world of a "young" cop, determined to make his second shot at life count.