Arena (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Arena is a British
television documentary
series, made and broadcast by the BBC
. It has run since 1 October 1975, and over five hundred episodes have been made. Arena covers all manner of subjects, from profiles of notable people such as Bob Dylan
to the Ford Cortina
car. Arena was originally conceived by the producer Alan Yentob
, who also did on-camera presenting and interviewing work for the programme. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.
magazine.
Arena has presented many themed nights examining a single subject in various ways, including; an "Animals Night" (16 December 1989), "Food Night" (15 December 1990), "Cuba Night" (2 January 1999) "Bus Night" (10 December 2005) and the ambitious "Radio Night", simulcast
on BBC Two
and BBC Radio 4
on 18 December 1993.
Over the years, Arena has also covered Salvador Dali, Mark Boyle, the Mona Lisa, the Chelsea Hotel in New York, Howard Hodgkin, Richard Hamilton, Anthony Caro, Marc Chaimowicz, the Cable Street Mural, John Byrne, John Hoyland, Robert Natkin, Dire Straits, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Bob Marley, etc. In My Way (1978), a documentary film devoted to the song, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols sung his version.
In 1988, Arena itself was the subject of an edition titled "Ten Green Bottles" (a reference to its iconic title sequence, which depicts a floating green bottle with a neon sign inside).
" by Brian Eno
, himself the subject of a 2010 edition subtitled Another Green World. The track features guitar by Robert Fripp
.
The arena opening titles were voted among 'the five most influential of all time' by Broadcast magazine
.
Recently Anthony has produced Arena: Bacon’s Arena, a portrait of the painter, and Arena: Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus, which received a nomination for International Critics’ Prize at the IDFA in 2004. He co-produced the multi-award winning No Direction Home
- Bob Dylan
for Arena directed by Martin Scorsese
in 2005. In the last year Anthony has continued to oversee a diverse output of arts films at Arena: the strand profiled the contemporary media phenomenon Pete Doherty
, as well as the lives of the Saints and the history of popular Radio Four soap opera The Archers
.
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television documentary
Television documentary
Documentary television is a genre of television programming that broadcasts documentaries.* Documentary television series, a television series which is made up of documentary episodes....
series, made and broadcast by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. It has run since 1 October 1975, and over five hundred episodes have been made. Arena covers all manner of subjects, from profiles of notable people such as Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
to the Ford Cortina
Ford Cortina
As the 1960s dawned, BMC were revelling in the success of their new Mini – the first successful true minicar to be built in Britain in the postwar era...
car. Arena was originally conceived by the producer Alan Yentob
Alan Yentob
Alan Yentob is a British television executive and presenter who has worked throughout his career at the BBC.-Early life:...
, who also did on-camera presenting and interviewing work for the programme. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.
Overview
Arena was voted one of the 50 most influential programmes of all time in a poll of leading TV executives in BroadcastBroadcast
Broadcast or Broadcasting may refer to:* Broadcasting, the transmission of audio and video signals* Broadcast, an individual television program or radio program* Broadcast , an English electronic music band...
magazine.
Arena has presented many themed nights examining a single subject in various ways, including; an "Animals Night" (16 December 1989), "Food Night" (15 December 1990), "Cuba Night" (2 January 1999) "Bus Night" (10 December 2005) and the ambitious "Radio Night", simulcast
Simulcast
Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...
on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
and BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
on 18 December 1993.
Over the years, Arena has also covered Salvador Dali, Mark Boyle, the Mona Lisa, the Chelsea Hotel in New York, Howard Hodgkin, Richard Hamilton, Anthony Caro, Marc Chaimowicz, the Cable Street Mural, John Byrne, John Hoyland, Robert Natkin, Dire Straits, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Bob Marley, etc. In My Way (1978), a documentary film devoted to the song, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols sung his version.
In 1988, Arena itself was the subject of an edition titled "Ten Green Bottles" (a reference to its iconic title sequence, which depicts a floating green bottle with a neon sign inside).
Reviews
- 'Arena remains one of the premier brands in documentary television'- Esquire magazine
- 'Arena is the oasis in the sea of insanity that is television'- Werner HerzogWerner HerzogWerner Herzog Stipetić , known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.He is often considered as one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner...
- 'This should be compulsory viewing for today's formulaic programme-makers.' -Daily MailDaily MailThe Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
- 'The series has always been able to treat both high and popular culture with gravitas.' -The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
.
Theme music
The programme's theme music is "Another Green WorldAnother Green World
Another Green World is the third studio album by British musician Brian Eno. Produced by Eno and Rhett Davies, it was originally released by Island Records in September 1975. As he had done with previous solo albums, Eno worked with several guest musicians including Phil Collins, John Cale and...
" by Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, himself the subject of a 2010 edition subtitled Another Green World. The track features guitar by Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
.
The arena opening titles were voted among 'the five most influential of all time' by Broadcast magazine
Broadcast magazine
Broadcast is a weekly magazine for the United Kingdom television and radio industry. It covers a wide range of news and issues affecting the professional broadcast market in the UK. Broadcast has regular weekly sections covering News, Commissioning, Facilities, Analysis, Opinion, Interview,...
.
Anthony Wall (series editor)
Anthony Wall has been with Arena for most of the strand’s 30 years, first as a director and since 1985 as Series Editor. As director, producer and executive producer, Wall has personally won three BAFTA awards, three Royal Television Society awards, the Prix Italia, an International Emmy and the Special Medallion at Telluride.Recently Anthony has produced Arena: Bacon’s Arena, a portrait of the painter, and Arena: Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus, which received a nomination for International Critics’ Prize at the IDFA in 2004. He co-produced the multi-award winning No Direction Home
No Direction Home
No Direction Home is a documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on 20th century American popular music and culture. The film does not cover Dylan's entire career; it concentrates on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his...
- Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
for Arena directed by Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
in 2005. In the last year Anthony has continued to oversee a diverse output of arts films at Arena: the strand profiled the contemporary media phenomenon Pete Doherty
Pete Doherty
Peter Doherty is an English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist. He is best known musically for being co-frontman of The Libertines, which he reformed with Carl Barât in 2010. His other musical project is indie band Babyshambles...
, as well as the lives of the Saints and the history of popular Radio Four soap opera The Archers
The Archers
The Archers is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting"...
.
Awards
To date, Arena has won nine BAFTAs and two International Emmys. Arena has also won the grand jury prize for 'Paris is Burning' and the best performance award for Lily Taylor's role in I Shot Andy Warhol at the Sundance Film FestivalSundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
.
Selected filmography
- 2008 Paul Scofield
- 2008 Cab driver
- 2007 Bob Marley: Exodus
- 2006 The Archers
- 2006 Pete Doherty
- 2005 Dylan In The Madhouse
- 2004 Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus
- 2003 Dylan Thomas – From Grave To Cradle
- 2002 My Way
- 2001 Sykes and a Day
- 2001 The Private Dirk BogardeDirk BogardeSir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death in Venice...
- 1999 Looking for The Iron Curtain
- 1998 The Brian Epstein Story
- 1995 The Peter Sellers Story (three parter)
- 1994 Phillip K Dick
- 1993 Tales of Rock 'N' Roll: Peggy Sue, Heartbreak Hotel, Walk On The Wild Side & Highway 61 Revisited (Four part documentaries on the songs that were sung by Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Lou Reed & Bob Dylan)
- 1989 Heavy Metal
- 1988 Slim Gaillard’s Civilisation
- 1987 Salvador Dalí
- 1987 How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria
- 1986 Maytime On The Mosquito Coast
- 1984 David InshawDavid InshawDavid Inshaw is a British artist who sprang to public attention in 1973 when his painting The Badminton Game was exhibited at the ICA Summer Studio exhibition in London...
- Between Dreaming and Waking - 1984 The Everly Brothers - Songs of Innocence and Experience
- 1983 The Life And Times Of Don Luis Buñuel
- 1982 Desert Island Discs, Upon Westminster Bridge, Private Life of the Ford Cortina
- 1981 Superman – The Comic Strip Hero, Today Carshalton Beeches Tomorrow Croydon, Brighton To Barbados
- 1980 Luck and Flaw
- 1975 Theatre (featuring Laurence OlivierLaurence OlivierLaurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
and Kenneth TynanKenneth TynanKenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
)
External links
- Arena at 30 site at bbc.co.ukBbc.co.ukBBC Online is the brand name and home for the BBC's UK online service. It is a large network of websites including such high profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services co-branded BBC iPlayer, the pre-school site Cbeebies, and learning services such as Bitesize...
. - BBC Programmes - Arena