All Available Episode
All Season 2008 Episode
1. Edith Piaf - Singing Her Life
Profile of legendary French chanteuse Edith Piaf, whose talent for re-inventing herself was second only to her phenomenal voice and who used her difficult upbringing to feed her art and create the iconic performer the world came to know simply as Piaf. She found a generation of great songwriters to help her tell her story and nurtured singers including Charles Aznavour, Georges Moustaki and Yves Montand. Includes contributions from Ute Lemper, biographer Margaret Crosland and critic Gene Lees.
2. The Chieftains
Profile of the band who helped to save Irish traditional music from disappearing and spread its sound and popularity across the world over the last 45 years. Featuring interviews with the current four members - fiddler Sean Keane, vocalist and bodhran player Kevin Conneff, flautist Matt Molloy and band leader Paddy Moloney, who plays pipes and whistle - and tributes from fans including Keith Richards, Sting, Elvis Costello, Sir James Galway and Andrea Corr.
3. Marty Feldman - Six Degrees of Separation
Marty Feldman was one of the forgotten greats of British Comedy. Uniquely, Feldman's journey took him from the golden age of BBC Radio comedy, with Round the Horne, the show he co-wrote with Barry Took, through the hothouse of 1960s television comedy, where Marty worked alongside the Pythons on The Frost Report and At Last The 1948 Show before getting his own series. He went on to Hollywood with classic movies like Young Frankenstein. Marty was a writer first and foremost, but he was also a great physical clown, who idolised Buster Keaton. In moving to Hollywood, he hoped to emulate Keaton, but the Hollywood system quickly withdrew its support when they couldn't contain his talents. Featuring a cast of close friends including John Cleese, Michael Palin, Sir David Frost, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Dom DeLuise (and parrot), Larry Gelbart (who produced a series for US television for Marty) and the great director Barry Levinson, who was one of his writers.
4. Humphrey Lyttelton
A profile of the late jazz musician, band leader and broadcaster Humphrey Lyttelton's 60-year career. As a jazzman, 'Humph' composed and performed Bad Penny Blues - the first jazz recording to enter the charts - and was feted by no less a figure than Louis Armstrong, who described him as Britain's top trumpeter. For more than 40 years, he hosted some of the BBC's most successful radio shows, including Radio Two's Best of Jazz and the hugely popular antidote to panel game shows, Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, in which Humph propelled the art of the double entendre to new heights. His family, friends and colleagues pay tribute to this enormously popular entertainer in a documentary featuring some unseen home movie footage, archive films of his finest performances, and interviews with regular guest panellists Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer, Jeremy Hardy, Rob Brydon and Sandi Toksvig, as well as Humph's son Stephen.
5. Julian Bream
Andrew McGregor introduces a compilation of performances from the BBC archives of 1962-1979 by the legendary classical guitarist Julian Bream. As well as playing solo, Bream also collaborates with fellow guitarist John Williams and jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli.
6. Nana Mouskouri - The White Rose of Athens
Profile of Greek singer Nana Mouskouri, known as the White Rose of Athens and one of the best-selling female artists of all time. The documentary features a revealing interview with Nana herself, rare archive footage and interviews with family and friends including Harry Belafonte, Julio Iglesias and Charles Aznavour. There is also exclusive footage from her July 2008 farewell concert in Athens which, following a four year long world tour, marked her retirement from performing.
7. Roy Orbison - The 'Big O' in Britain
To mark the 20th anniversary of his death, this documentary from 2008 celebrates the extraordinary talent of Roy Orbison and his relationship with his most loyal fans, British musicians and the British public. Through a combination of interview and archive, it charts Orbison's career in Britain, from the sell-out tour with the Beatles that rocketed him to superstardom to the collaboration with lifelong friend George Harrison on the Travelling Wilburys project in the 1980's.
8. Charlie Parker
Hugh Quarshie narrates the story of one of the greatest jazz saxophonists of all time. Charlie Parker was a pioneer of the postwar bebop school which changed the face of jazz forever, before his tragic death at the age of 34. Contributors include Jimmy Heath, James Moody, Peter King, Slide Hampton, Phil Woods and Mitch Miller.