Arena — Season 1, Episode 176: True to Life?
Documentary • 90 min • 3 seasons, 689 episodes • ★ 7.2/10
Episode synopsis
In a month of continuing controversy about the aims and methods of the ' documentary', Arena presents a classic film by one of the pioneers of the movement-Humphrey Jennings 's Listen to Britain. Made in 1941, it will be seen here, complete, for the first time on British television. Also Gavin Millar looks at the craft of recent documentary makers, focusing on the techniques of the BBC's current Police series. With Roger Graef , Charles Stewart and the team who made it.
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.