Mike Leigh

'The Art of Directing', presented by leading actress Cush Jumbo, focuses on the great British film-maker Mike Leigh. Seven times an Oscar nominee, Leigh has devised his own method of making dramatic and comic films by working closely with actors through improvisation and developing the characters and the script with them. Beginning his career in the theatre, he spent many years making films for BBC Television, before shifting towards the cinema with High Hopes (1988), Life Is Sweet (1990) and the controversial Naked (1993). Though most of Leigh's films have been set in contemporary Britain, he has also delved into history with Topsy Turvy (1999), about Gilbert and Sullivan, and Mr Turner (2014), his biopic of the artist, which won Timothy Spall a Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival. Leigh talks about how he evolved his unique way of working and the subjects that fascinate him, and we see him at work on location with his biggest project yet, Peterloo, directing an immense cast over various locations to recreate the events around the infamous Peterloo Massacre which took place in Northern England in 1819.