The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day

Eyewitness accounts and cine films from 1945.

Tony Robinson’s VE Day: Minute By Minute will take a unique look at a pivotal day in the history of the modern world, delving into the key events that made VE Day such a momentous twenty-four hours. This is the story of what happened on that most celebrated and important day, including original interviews with historians and veterans who tell their stories and share their first-hand experiences. Using unseen archive footage and stills, plus never told accounts from veterans who were there, this one-off special will chart the moment the clock struck midnight, to 24 hours later, when fighting officially stopped across Europe. Up and down the country it was dawning on people that they were waking up not with fear or anxiety, but with relief and excitement. This was a Great Britain no one had experienced for six years. A Britain at peace. At almost no notice street celebrations were being prepared and tens of thousands were flocking to London and other city centres.

The re-imagining of VE Day in 1945, when Princess Elizabeth and her sister, Margaret were allowed out from Buckingham Palace for the night to join in the celebrations, and encounter romance and danger.

"Friday 8 May 2020 will mark the 75th anniversary of the formal end of the Second World War in Europe. “V-E Day – Forever in their Debt” tells the stories of those who experienced the end of the war in all its many forms. It features a wide range of interviews from children who remember the street parties, to the servicemen who remember not having to buy a single drink that day, then there are the POWs for whom a hot bath was all they wanted after years of captivity. The programme is richly illustrated with archive including a colour film showing the celebrations in London. Other archive films show a grumpy Montgomery taking the surrender of German land forces in northern Germany on May 4."

We’ll Meet Again for VE Day 75 with Katherine Jenkins

Saxophonist walks through the city at night. He is haunted by a melody, an annoying motif, like a fluttering butterfly, he first appears and then dissolves again in the darkness of the night.

No Me Digas Wey

The international success of the film Das Boot by Wolfgang Petersen made U-96 one of the most famous submarines in cinematic history. But the true story of one of Hitler's most fearsome U-boats and its crew goes far beyond fiction. For the first time, this documentary sheds light on the reality behind the fiction through exclusive interviews with the makers and actors of Das Boot, as well as the last survivors of the time. In doing so, this documentary explores how Hitler's propaganda images may have influenced the visual and narrative force of Das Boot.

This production was originally staged for the Pepsico Summerfare Festival, The International Performing Arts Festival of the State University of New York at Purchase. Leaving the lyrics in their original Italian, acclaimed American director Peter Sellars transports Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Don Giovanni" to a modern-day metropolis, nestling the opera's beloved characters among the brownstones of New York City's Harlem. Sellars's contemporary retelling of a classic musical tale is one of three performances in a Mozart series that also includes "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "'Così Fan Tutte."

In the Ming Dynasty, meteorites trigger a mutation, transforming villagers into zombies. Despite the peril, Zuo Lianshan ventures into the zombie-infested city, driven by a desperate mission to rescue his daughter.

A documentary look inside the world of the early, unsung heroes of rock and roll whose voices shaped the music that endures.

Han Hsiang Li's lush epic re-creates the fascinating life and times of Tzu Hsi, the Manchu Qing dynasty empress who rose from the ranks of Emperor Xianfeng's many concubines to become the de facto ruler of China for nearly 50 years.

A group of Russian partisans hiding within a remote forest attempt to destroy a nearby German airfield, all the while assisting a downed French pilot who happens to fall madly in love with a local girl.

D'Artagnan and his musketeer comrades must thwart the plans of Cardinal Richelieu to usurp King Louis XIII's power.

Several years after the battle of Waterloo, a former soldier from Shoreditch sits in a London inn reminiscing about the brave and determined officer who took him to hell and back. The narrator is Rifleman Cooper, and the officer whose fame he recalls is the legendary Richard Sharpe.

Bob the Builder and his friends are back with a charming musical special. This time, Bob and his friends head out to the wild west and are hot on the trail of a secret treasure, though they are always able to take time out for a song or two.

Last Eunuch In China

Rocker Pete Jones is in trouble. He’s solo in his personal and professional life and he can’t seem to finish his long-awaited album. Threatened with bankruptcy and a lawsuit from his label, Pete turns to his lost love and former producer-turned-radio-reporter Laura Klein for help. Together, they form an eclectic group of musicians who have never met to create a band, for one day and one day only.

Neil Hamburger is a two-bit stand-up with a bad comb-over--an aging, phlegmy jokester with a penchant for cheap celebrity jabs. He's also the brilliantly odd creation of Gregg Turkington, a decidedly more gifted comedian who has found a loyal cult following for his Tony Clifton-esque character. In this concert release, Hamburger performs a handful of twangy country tunes alongside the Too-Good-For-Neil-Hamburger Band, a name that speaks the truth: the back-up group includes veteran rockers Prairie Prince, David Gleason, and Atom Ellis.

In the time of the Tang Dynasty, Yu Xiufeng, a porcelain maker from Mount Meicen, makes a ceramic statue of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara to consecrate at Mount Wutai to protect the princeling Li Yi.