Season 1 · Episode 1
Mary Beard visits Stonehenge, where she meets leading creative voices, including Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller. Mary explores which cultural forms are the winners and losers of the pandemic.
Mary enters the glitzy world of awards and prizes. There are hundreds: not just for books and movies, but poetry, museums and gardens. How do they influence what art is created and what culture we consume? And has the pandemic helped us see beyond the glamour and red carpets and reassess what prizes are for? Mary talks to Emmy-nominated actor Brian Cox and Bernardine Evaristo, who last year shared the Booker Prize with Margaret Atwood.
Mary inhabits the worlds of architecture and fashion to analyse how we live now, during a pandemic, and fulfils a 40-year-long dream of reuniting the cast of renowned 1970s BBC drama I, Claudius.
Mary examines what the future holds for museums post-lockdown, venturing out of her study to the British Museum to take on the role of museum guide.
Mary talks to award-winning filmmaker and Turner Prize winning artist Steve McQueen, discussing his views on growing up in London and his new BBC One anthology series Small Axe.
In this three-part documentary series Waldemar Januszczak discovers paintings, sculptures and architecture of the Baroque period. Starting from the square of Saint Peter's Basilica in Italy to St Paul's Cathedral in England.
2009
No description available.
2017
His art changed the way we see the world - now change the way you see the artist. An unflinching look at Picasso's legacy, and the horror and brilliance of what he left behind. Family, friends and experts reassess the tumultuous artistic and personal life of Pablo Picasso, one of the greatest and most provocative artists of all time.
2023
2018
As Johnny prepares to create a piece of public art for his home town of St Helens, an unexpected diagnosis sets him off on a complex emotional journey of self-discovery where art and life sometimes merge.
2025
Amol Rajan interviews era-defining pioneers, game-changers, leaders and maverick thinkers. Get inside the minds of the people who shape our world.
2021
In this four-part BBC documentary, former Monty Python funnyman and renowned globe-trotter Michael Palin sets off from Gibraltar to travel across the Sahara, his witty humor downplaying the hardships he faces along the arduous journey. He travels to Morocco, Mauritania, Mali and beyond, across some of the harshest terrain on the planet.
2002
Art historian Waldemar Januszczak uncovers the secret meanings hidden within some of the greatest paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Seurat .
2020
National identity, social class, inequality. David Olusoga shines a light on our fractured modern society through the lens of the past, exposing the fault lines dividing the UK.
Dr Adam Rutherford investigates the close relationship between discoveries in anatomy and the works of art that illustrate them.
2014
Actor/adventurer Jack Maxwell learned a lot working in South Boston bars, and one lesson stood out: Enjoy a couple of drinks with a stranger, and the whole world opens up. Those experiences inspired "Booze Traveler," which follows Maxwell to various countries to quench his curiosity about what people drink, why, and the tales it prompts. In Armenia, Belize, Lithuania, Mongolia, Nepal and elsewhere, Maxwell learns its intoxicating traditions, meets with locals, joins in activities, and even helps with the alcohol-making process. He finds a unique drink, makes friends and shares stories in each spot.
Andrew Graham-Dixon embarks on his most ambitious journey yet, an exploration of the rich, exciting and diverse art history of the United States of America
2011
Andrew Graham-Dixon undertakes an epic journey to uncover the art of China.
Through the beauty of artistic forms, Ramon Gener goes inside the inner workings of human nature. All artists use art to explain their emotions.
Jamie Oliver travels the country searching for new ideas and inspiration and to find out what makes British food great.
Rick Steves, America's leading authority on European travel, returns to transport viewers to the continent's bustling cities, quaint villages and picturesque countryside.
2000