BBC Arts announces unique new documentaries, a focus on the novel, arts and well-being, and a front-row seat for the best contemporary culture

• The Novels That Shaped Our World (w/t) for BBC Two forms the centrepiece of major BBC season marking and celebrating the 300th anniversary of Robinson Crusoe and the novel
• Paul McGann, Dr Hannah Fry, and artist Philippa Perry explore the technology, art and culture of the 1890s in a fascinating three part-series for BBC Four, Victorian Sensations (w/t)
• Alan Yentob speaks to comedian Jo Brand as part of a new imagine… run on BBC One
• Celebrity Big Painting Challenge heads the return of Get Creative, a nine day festival encouraging creative participation. Health and well-being will be a major focus with the results of BBC Arts’ Great British Creativity Test
• Conceptual artist Ryan Gander investigates the art of the ‘selfie’ in a new documentary for BBC Four
• Jim Moir - AKA Vic Reeves - celebrates the centenary of the Bauhaus movement in a Bauhaus takeover of Central St Martin’s as part of a new BBC Four moment looking at the history and legacy of this iconic era
• #DancePassion will see an on-air and online celebration of the UK’s dance sector with exclusive performances, backstage access and live rehearsals from some of our leading dance organisations and independent artists
• Reggie Yates reveals the revolutionary change in the fortunes of black talent in the TV industry
• Hip hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy goes on a quest to uncover the hidden black figures of Renaissance Italian art
• A BBC Two documentary uncovers a little-known side to Oscar Wilde. Featuring on-screen performances of his work from Freddie Fox, Claire Skinner and Anna Chancellor amongst others and comments from Stephen Fry and Wilde’s grandson
• Mark Kermode turns his own, unique lens on disaster movies and award-winning films in two new Secrets of Cinema episodes for BBC Four
• To mark the 350th anniversary of the artist’s death, Rembrandt’s story is recounted as never before as a three-part BBC Four documentary tells his story from an unusual perspective - his own
• The Space and BBC Arts offer the best in performance, from a new contemporary dance piece from Phoenix Dance Theatre celebrating the arrival of SS Windrush to the Northern Ballet’s Victoria, which celebrates the 200th anniversary of the monarch’s birth with a dance biopic

Featuring a wealth of TV, radio and partnership initiatives across the year, BBC Arts led moments hope to engage the nation and encourage a love of the arts. Across the BBC the 300th anniversary of Robinson Crusoe and the birth of the British novel will be marked and celebrated with a landmark pan-BBC season in the autumn, whilst the artistry of dance will be explored and profiled with BBC Young Dancer 2019 in the spring. There will also be an inaugural Dance Passion festival, a focus on arts and wellbeing around the return of Get Creative - the participatory arts movement in partnership with the arts sector- and in the autumn, Contains Strong Language, the BBC’s poetry festival will also return.

Jonty Claypole, Director of Arts, BBC says: “This year we’ll be giving you a front-row seat to the best in arts and culture from celebrating the novel and the art of poetry with landmark programing, to encouraging participation in the arts with the return of Get Creative. Above all we’ll be telling brilliant stories from fresh, new perspectives. From conceptual artist Ryan Gander’s take on the selfie, Reggie Yates’ investigation of the rise of black talent in the TV industry, Fab 5 Freddy’s unique exploration of Italian Renaissance Art, a new look at Oscar Wilde, Bauhaus, Victoriana and Rembrandt to the return of the much-loved Mark Kermode’s Secret of Cinema, Arena, Front Row Late and imagine…, there is something for everyone with a passion for arts and culture.”

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The novel and the art of verse celebrated

To mark the 300th anniversary of Robinson Crusoe a new season celebrating the art and pleasure of reading and literature will air across the BBC this autumn.

With new partnerships and programming across BBC TV, radio, and online the centrepiece of the season is a landmark series for BBC Two, The Novels That Shaped Our World. Examining the novel from three unique perspectives: The Empire, women’s voices and working class experience, these unique films will argue that the novel has always been a revolutionary agent of social change spearheading shifts in both colonial and post-colonial attitudes, female equality and social mobility.

The Novels That Shaped Our World (w/t) (3x60') is an IWC Media production. It was commissioned for BBC Arts and BBC Two by Mark Bell. Franny Moyle is the Executive Producer for IWC Media.

Also this autumn, Contains Strong Language returns to Hull for a third time. Building on the huge success of previous festivals, Contains Strong Language continues to work with a wide range of partners both local and national to deliver a rich offering of poetry and spoken word events and commissions, both in Hull and on National and local broadcast platforms. Contains Strong Language leads the BBC’s City of Culture legacy, developing artists such as Isaiah Hull and Vicky Foster who have both received major commissions outside the festival, leading on community projects such as Radio Club and working with and developing local partners such as Wrecking Ball Press, who will publish an anthology, Sea Change from the 2019 International partnership with Indonesia.

Arts stories from fresh perspectives

Ryan Gander, Reggie Yates and Fab 5 Freddy feature in new documentaries; Me, My Selfie and I with Ryan Gander, TV’s Black Renaissance: Reggie Yates in Hollywood and A Fresh Guide To Florence with Fab 5 Freddy.

In Me, My Selfie and I with Ryan Gander celebrated conceptual artist Ryan Gander (pictured above, right) investigates the selfie - the icon of a new kind of self-regard that hardly existed just ten years ago. He discovers the roots of the selfie go back hundreds of years before smartphones. He investigates - in the age of social media, when we are told to be our best selves and live our best lives - what does that really mean, and what is technology doing to our sense of self?

Me, My Selfie and I with Ryan Gander (w/t) (1x60') is a Swan Films production commissioned for BBC Arts and BBC Four by Mark Bell. It was Produced and Directed by Sam Anthony. The Executive Producers for Swan Films are Neil Crombie and Joe Evans.

Revolutionary change is shaking up the TV industry in Hollywood. A wave of hit shows like Atlanta, Dear White People and Insecure, all with majority African-American casts, are pioneering a new frankness about race and identity. TV’s Black Renaissance: Reggie Yates in Hollywood follows Reggie Yates (pictured above) to LA and into this ferociously creative and hugely aspirational new world, as he meets leading African-American actors such as Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, True Detective) and Stranger Things star Caleb Mclaughlin, and writers and showrunners from Lena Waithe (Master of None and The Chi) to Justin Simien (Dear White People). Through entertaining encounters with some of the most exciting talent working in the entertainment industry, Reggie tackles the big questions in Trump’s America that the work coming out of this black renaissance addresses, and he explores his own experiences of working in front of, and behind, the camera.

TV’s Black Renaissance: Reggie Yates in Hollywood (1x60') is a Swan Films production commissioned for BBC Arts and BBC Two by Emma Cahusac. Produced and Directed by Yemi Bamiro, Executive Producers for Swan Films are Neil Crombie and Joe Evans, and Emma Cahusac is the Executive Producer for the BBC.

In the revelatory A Fresh Guide To Florence with Fab 5 Freddy, 15th and 16th century Italian Renaissance art is examined through the eyes of hip hop legend and art lover Fred Brathwaite aka Fab 5 Freddy (main image). Amidst superstar artists such as Michelangelo and powerful patrons such as the Medici’s, Fab discovers ground-breaking images of a multi-racial and multi-ethnic society that have slipped through the cracks of art history.

A Fresh Guide To Florence with Fab 5 Freddy (1x60') is a BBC Studios Production and was commissioned for BBC Arts and BBC Two by Mark Bell. The Executive Producer for BBC Studios is Janet Lee and the film was produced and directed by David Shulman.

Also on BBC Two, The Importance of Being Oscar is a unique account of Oscar Wilde’s career up to his trial for homosexual crimes and tragic fall from grace. Highlights from Oscar’s brilliant comedies such as The Importance of Being Earnest and stories such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Canterville Ghost are adapted and performed by a cast including Freddie Fox, Claire Skinner, Anna Chancellor and James Fleet. Wilde enthusiasts and experts including Stephen Fry, Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland, and his latest biographers provide revelatory accounts of how his own life informed his work.

The Importance of Being Oscar (1x80') is an IWC Media production and it was commissioned for BBC Arts and BBC Two by Mark Bell. The Executive Producer for IWC is Franny Moyle and the film was directed by Richard Curson Smith.

The centenary of Bauhaus is marked and celebrated in a fascinating new BBC Four season.

Jim Moir (AKA Vic Reeves, pictured above) will join recent graduates from Central Saint Martin’s to stage a Bauhaus take over in Bauhaus Rules. Over the course of a week, former students from Central Saint Martins, UAL will do things differently as they collaborate with contemporary artists and leading designers in an immersive art experiment to recreate life at the Bauhaus.

Bauhaus Rules (1x60') is a BBC Studios production and was commissioned for BBC Arts and BBC Four by Emma Cahusac. Janet Lee is the Executive Producer for BBC Studios and Simon Lloyd is the Director and Producer.

Anni Albers: A Life in Thread tells the incredible story of Anni Albers who helped transform perceptions of textiles from craft to modern art form. The film also documents the turbulent final years of the Bauhaus weaving workshop in which Anni Albers was forced to flee Nazi Germany to start a new life in America.

Anni Albers: A Life in Thread (1x30') is a BBC Studios production for BBC Arts and BBC Four. It was commissioned by Emma Cahusac. The Executive Producer for BBC Studios is Janet Lee and the Director and Producer is Alex Harding.

BAUHAUS 100 recounts the definitive story of the men and women of the Bauhaus who dared to dream how art and design could radically change the modern world.

BAUHAUS 100 (1x60') is a BBC Studios production for BBC Arts and BBC Four. It was commissioned by Emma Cahusac. The Executive Producer for BBC Four is Janet Lee, the Director is Mat Whitecross and Producer is Alice Rhodes.

To mark the 350th anniversary of his death, Looking for Rembrandt on BBC Four tells his fascinating story from his own perspective.

When Rembrandt died, having fallen on hard times and out of fashion, he left no diaries and fewer than ten letters. This unique documentary looks for fragments of this most contradictory personality and utilises a vivid cast of collectors, art restorers, hand surgeons, security consultants, insolvency lawyers, novelists, curators and graffiti artists. Seeking him in Amsterdam’s civic and legal archives, in his self-portraits, of which there are almost 90, and in his many different paintings, etchings, and drawings the programme recreates the voice of the artist to recount his own story.

Looking for Rembrandt (3x60') is a Matchlight production for BBC Four. It was commissioned for BBC Arts and BBC Four by Emma Cahusac. The Executive Producer for Matchlight is Ross Wilson and Tim Niel is the producer.

The art of the filmmaker revealed

Mark Kermode returns to BBC Four to turn his own unique lens on the art of the filmmaker, with two more episodes of Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema looking at award winners and disaster movies.

In Award Winners (w/t) Mark argues that, for all their apparent differences, the winners of prestigious film awards have more in common than you might think. There are perennial themes, such as war, disability and historical biography. But as Mark demonstrates, it's the particular treatment of those themes that can make the difference between a film that’s showered with garlands, and one that swiftly disappears from view.

Meanwhile, in Disaster Movies (w/t) Mark shows how the disaster genre has constantly reinvented itself, whether it's recreating historical catastrophes or devising new, science fiction ones. Yet spectacle alone isn’t enough, and Mark will reveal how film-makers have relied on recurring story devices, themes and character types to hold our attention and maintain our sense of jeopardy.

Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema (2x60') is written by Mark Kermode and Kim Newman and is BBC Studios production for BBC Four. It was commissioned for BBC Arts and BBC Four by Mark Bell and Executive Producer for BBC Studios is John Das.

Victorian Sensations (w/t) on BBC Four transports us to the thrilling era of the 1890s, a decade of rapid and often bewildering discovery and change which continues to resonate today. In their respective films, mathematician Dr Hannah Fry (pictured above), actor Paul McGann and psychotherapist Philippa Perry explore the technology, art and culture of the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign. They reveal a Britain bewitched by electricity and X-rays; where decadence and artistic genius go hand in hand; and where a mass media revolution encompasses the dawn of cinema and some very Victorian fake news scandals.

Victorian Sensations (w/t) (3x60') is an Academy 7 production in collaboration with the BFI for BBC Four. It was commissioned by Mark Bell for BBC Arts for BBC Four. The Executive Producers for Academy 7 are John Das and Sebastian Barfield.

To accompany Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle, Windrush: Movement of the People (pictured above), a BBC Arts partnership with The Space and Phoenix Dance Theatre, is a new contemporary dance piece that celebrates the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush and, for the first time, tells the collective history of the immigrants’ dreams, hopes and pain in dance form. Performed by Phoenix Dance Theatre’s ten company dancers the show is the first narrative work created by Artistic Director, Sharon Watson.

Windrush: Movement of the People (1x60') was devised by Phoenix Dance Theatre’s Artistic Director Sharon Watson. The capture team are Executive Producers Emma Cahusac (BBC), Helen Spencer (The Space), and Mark Hollander (Phoenix Dance Theatre). The Producer is Martin Collins and Ross MacGibbon is the Director.

Northern Ballet's new regal biopic, Victoria (pictured above), also on BBC Four brings the sensational story of Queen Victoria to life in dance to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Britain’s most iconic monarch.

Victoria (1x90') is a co-production with The National Ballet of Canada and created by an artistic team including acclaimed choreographer Cathy Marston, dramaturg Uzma Hameed, designer Steffen Aarfing and composer Philip Feeney. The multicamera capture will be filmed at Sadler’s Wells directed by Ross MacGibbon. Mark Skipper and Liam Verity are the Executive Producers for Northern Ballet.

Well-being and arts participation

Get Creative returns in May, inspiring everyone to try something new and creative whether that's pottery, painting, poetry or pirouettes. As part of the nine day festival, the BBC will reveal the results of the Great British Creativity Test which will provide fascinating insights into creativity and wellbeing.

Celebrity Big Painting Challenge also returns to BBC One encouraging would-be painters to pick up a brush and easel.

Returning BBC Arts strands

In addition to the return of BBC Two’s topical arts discussion Front Row Late and arts documentary strand Arena, BBC One’s imagine… returns with a new run and features a revealing profile of comedian and star of The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice, Jo Brand.

From her working class roots in South London, through her teenage-tearaway years in Hastings to the decade that she spent as a psychiatric nurse, Jo’s journey into comedy has not been an easy one.

imagine… Jo Brand: No Holds Barred goes behind-the-scenes with Brand as she presents Have I Got News For You and The News Quiz on Radio 4 - and accompanies her on the book tour circuit, as she promotes her latest book, Born Lippy: How To Do Female. Contributors include: Peter Capaldi; Alan Davies, Victoria Coren Mitchell, Mark Thomas, Mary Beard, Morwenna Banks and Ian Hislop.

imagine… Jo Brand: No Holds Barred is a BBC Studios production. The exec producer is Tanya Hudson and Series Editor and presenter is Alan Yentob. Mark Bell is the commissioning editor for the BBC.

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