BBC to demonstrate renewed commitment to prime time Arts programming and partnerships
BBC announces major new partnership to boost creativity and participation.
Published: 15 February 2015
I want to put arts centre stage at the BBC. I strongly believe that arts should be for everyone with more prime time arts content on the BBC.
- BBC to unveil bigger commitment to arts in prime time, with a raft of Saturday night arts specials on BBC Two and new seasons on theatre, poetry and cinema
- New shows to include a new topical arts series on BBC Two, with guest editors including Maxine Peake, Sunday Times journalist Lynn Barber, Armando Iannucci, and Director of Tate Modern, Chris Dercon; and Artists Question Time on BBC Four
Ahead of a major new partnership announcement between the BBC and UK-wide Arts organisations to encourage creativity and participation in the arts, the BBC today announced a raft of new programme commissions that put creativity and the arts at the heart of the schedule.
The campaign, to be launched next week by the BBC and cultural movement What Next? is a year-long initiative to get more people than ever before inspired to do something creative.
Tony Hall, BBC Director General, says: “I want to put arts centre stage at the BBC. I strongly believe that arts should be for everyone with more prime time arts content on the BBC.
The BBC also needs to play an even greater role in getting the wider public to participate in the arts - particularly young people and children, as creativity can help boost innovation and help forge a life-long passion that can raise aspirations. That’s why the BBC will be forming a range of new partnerships to help that happen.”
The BBC is supporting the campaign with a bigger commitment to arts programming in prime time. There will be Saturday night arts specials on BBC Two accompanied by other content across the BBC with seasons planned on dance, film, theatre and poetry.
Kim Shillinglaw, Controller, BBC Two and BBC Four, says: “We need a new generation of arts programmes on BBC Two that will sit at the heart of the prime time schedule, engage and surprise the public, and be bold in their story telling and ambitious in their content. We will see more drama, live events and documentary. I hope to reach not only those who already love the arts, but also draw in new converts to the joy that the arts can bring.”
The new prime-time content launches this spring with a major new season on cinema in collaboration with the BFI. Film aficionado and lover of the silver screen Jonathan Ross presents The Secrets Of Pinewood on BBC Two; this fascinating documentary will go behind the scenes of Britain’s most iconic studios to bring the extraordinary story of Pinewood to life. Ross will be joined by a host of famous faces who will help open up the studios secrets.
On BBC Four, In Conversation... will present conversations with some of Britain’s foremost actors and directors, filmed with an audience at BFI Southbank. And BBC Four’s flagship arts documentary series Arena presents the first major profile of the great British film director Nicolas Roeg in which he has actively participated. The film examines his very personal vision of cinema as found in his films Don’t Look Now, Performance, Walkabout and The Man Who Fell To Earth.
BBC Arts online celebrates the British movie mavericks – the edgy directors and actors who were determined to do things their way. When the Hollywood studios pulled out of London in the early 70s, the British film industry could have headed south. But determined figures such as Ken Russell, Tilda Swinton, Derek Jarman and Shane Meadows were just some of the Brits-with-brio who went on to enjoy brilliant careers. Mixing filmed opinion pieces and lashings of great archive, BBC Arts tells their stories - when budgets were low but ambitions were high.
Later in the year, there will be new seasons on Poetry and Theatre. The Theatre festival includes Ian McKellen and Anthony Hopkins starring in a new adaptation of the drama The Dresser on BBC Two and new drama strand Dialogues, bringing together exceptional writing and acting talent to BBC Four.
In a new partnership with the Arts Council of England, we’ll be working with theatres and theatre companies to explore new ways of making and broadcasting theatre on the BBC.
And across the English Regions, we will be following 11 local theatres over the next six months as they tackle an array of challenges - on stage and off.
The poetry season will include a profile of the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy; a special on Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene; a drama adaptation of Simon Armitage’s long poem Black Roses: The Killing Of Sophie Lancaster; and Performance Poets In Their Own Words.
Radio 1Xtra, with support from Radio 1 and working alongside the Arts Council of England – is launching a brand new scheme to reflect and enrich the UK’s growing spoken word scene, with a key pillar being to find and develop brand new performance poets.
The BBC Proms Poetry Competition 2015, in association with the Poetry Society, opens for entries in June, challenging aspiring poets to write a poem inspired by any piece of music from this year’s Proms season. The winners of the competition will be invited to read their poems at a live Proms Extra event at the Royal College of Music and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and they will also receive a commission to write a new poem for BBC Radio 3 for National Poetry Day in October. BBC Radio 6 Music will also have Spoken Word Sessions around National Poetry Day.
Other BBC Two Saturday night arts specials this year include the new competition, Young Dancer Of The Year, celebrating all forms of contemporary dance; Amanda Vickery and Tom Service exploring the real-life drama behind one of the world’s most popular operas, Verdi’s La Traviata in La Traviata & The Women Of London; and Simon Russell Beale telling the story of The Monteverdi Vespers in The Duke And The Composer.
This spring also sees new topical arts programming across both BBC Two and BBC Four. Actress Maxine Peake, Sunday Times journalist Lynn Barber, Armando Iannucci, and Director of Tate Modern, Chris Dercon will each guest edit a new four-part series, Artsnight - a brand new weekly 30 minute arts and culture magazine show, made by BBC Arts - to be aired on BBC Two following Newsnight every Friday in March. Whilst BBC Four is tackling head-on the thorny questions surrounding creativity in the UK today in Artists Question Time (1x60). Presented Kirsty Wark, the series opens with a vital debate on who the Arts are for in the UK, who gets to play a part in the them and how should they be funded in times of recession.
EDA
