Arena — Season 1, Episode 172: Brixton to Barbados
Documentary • 90 min • 3 seasons, 689 episodes • ★ 7.2/10
Episode synopsis
Reggae has its roots in Jamaica, and has found a home in Britain. But there are over 60 countries in the Caribbean, each with its own distinctive culture. Arena invited Linton Kwesi Johnson , Britain's foremost reggae poet, to investigate the remarkable richness and variety of Caribbean art on its home ground-the occasion was the Carifesta, a huge festival held this year in Barbados. Among the highlights were the Rene gades , one of Trinidad's most brilliant steel bands; the best of soul-calypso with The Mighty Arrow from Montserrat; ' Riddim ' poetry by young Jamaican Michael Smith; big-band Irakere with the exotic Latin jazz of Cuba and Rebirth, an extraordinary dramatic saga which symbolically unites the many different ethnic groups of Surinam through their myths and legends.
About Arena
Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. Voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has run since 1 October 1975 with over five hundred episodes made, directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alan Yentob, Roly Keating, Frederick Baker, Volker Schlondorff and Vikram Jayanti. Arena's subjects are a roll-call of the world's best known cultural figures from the 20th and 21st centuries, from singers Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse to academics Edward Said and Eric Hobsbawm, from writers Jean Genet and V S Naipaul to artists Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.