Arena — Season 1, Episode 260: The Accordion Strikes Back
Documentary • 90 min • 3 seasons, 689 episodes • ★ 7.2/10
Episode synopsis
What do Charles Dickens , Count Leo Tolstoy , Barry Manilow and James Anderton , Chief Constable of Manchester, have in common? A love of the accordion. Tonight Arena investigates the appeal of a much-maligned instrument from its roots in Imperial China, and appraises its bellowings from Cajun to the classics, from Stockhausen to Jimmy Shand. Other sounds from around the world include the heart-throbs of the Indian cinema, Tex-Mex superstar Flaco Jiminez , Soweto's Mahotella Queens, and the Accordion World Cup in Folkestone.
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.