The Story of Musicals

Jason Manford hosts a celebration of musical theatre, full of showstoppers from the nation’s best-loved shows.

Celebrating the beauty and heartbreak of the Broadway theater, following a cross section of dreamers and schemers who all have one common desire - to be a "Smash."

One unsuspecting London high school is presented with the challenge of a lifetime: to audition, rehearse and perform a West End worthy performance of 'Hairspray' in one summer holiday.

The curtain rises on Sarasa Watanabe, a starry-eyed 5'10" student who hopes to perform as a male lead role in the all-female Kouka Acting Troupe. She forms a friendship with her new roommate, a former idol. Together, they’re in for the role of a lifetime.

East Berlin, 1956. Bertolt Brecht, revolutionary of the theater and poet of the state, looks back: his exploits as a teenager during the World War I; his romantic adventures during the twenties; the escape of the Nazi regime; the return from exile. The life of a timeless classic, a class fighter, an indefatigable free spirit, a committed artist.

With Musical Theatre hits streamed straight to your living room, grab your popcorn and watch a star-studded line up perform your West End favourites as you’ve never seen them before. If you’ve missed the magic of theatre this year, look no further!

The programme focuses on the British and the worldwide deaf community and covers a broad range of topics from areas such as education, deaf people's rights, technology and language. The programme is presented entirely in BSL and is broadcast with voice-over and subtitles in English throughout the programme.

Intrepid adventurer Michael Palin takes a journey through the Himalayas.

Michael Palin travels to 18 countries around the rim of the Pacific Ocean.

Michael Palin attempts to copy the exploits of fictional character Phileas Fogg, by trying to travel around the world (without flying) in 80 days.

Michael Palin undertakes an epic journey of 23,000 miles, traveling from the North to the South Pole across 17 countries with a minimum of air travel, all on a tight deadline.

Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure is a 1999 BBC television documentary presented by Michael Palin. It records Palin's travels as he visited many sites where Ernest Hemingway had been. The sites include Spain, Chicago, Paris, Italy, Africa, Key West, Cuba, and Idaho. After the trip was over Michael Palin wrote a book about the journey and his experiences. This book contains both Palin's text and many pictures by Basil Pao, the stills photographer who was on the team.

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.

Insider

Chateau Monty is a British reality television series in which writer Monty Waldin gives up life in England to take over a small organic vineyard in the south-west of France.

From the streets of an American city under siege, to the far-flung jungles of Vietnam or the deadly desert towns of Iraq, modern warfare is all about cutting-edge strategy, the latest weaponry and soldiers laying their lives on the line to overcome the enemy. Combat Zone takes you behind the lines of engagement of thirteen hard-fought armed conflicts and tells the true stories of the tactics, the firepower and the heroes who risked everything. Historical footage combined with gripping first-hand accounts from soldiers and analysis from military experts puts you right in the action.

The challenging and spirited early life of cinema's first great comedic artist, Charlie Chaplin, is portrayed. The innately talented young Charlie must overcome a wayward life of poverty and familial chaos to reach the pinnacle of stardom.

Chef Mario Batali hosts this series that celebrates the freshness, simplicity and traditions of Italian cuisine.

This is the story of the captain of a deep-sea trawler. Drawing on Roger Nowell's long family involvement in the Cornish fishing industry and his own lifetime of experience, the series provides viewers with an account of dramas at sea and at home, with stories both humorous and horrifying. Roger tells of the time he brought up a Ford Escort in his fishing net, and the day a gorilla appeared on his boat. He also reveals his involvement in major sea tragedies such as the wreck of the "Torrey Canyon" oil tanker and the Penlee lifeboat disaster, in which he lost several friends. Roger's beliefs and ideas are often not those which are normally associated with the tough fisherman image. Conservation of the seas and the fish within it is high on his list of priorities, and his belief in the white occult is reflected in day-to-day actions as he faces the dangers and uncertainties of the sea.

CMA Music Festival