Arthouse — Season 1

Aired 26 October 1997

Geraldine Norman investigates the growing body of evidence that casts doubt on the authenticity of paintings which have long been held to be works of Vincent Van Gogh.

Aired 3 November 1997 • 51 min

Hungarian businessman Gyorgy Klapka attempts to resurrect the once-famous Lilliput dwarf theatre in Budapest, closed down long ago by the Communists, to mount a production of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi. But after suffering years of exploitation as well as banishment, the dwarf actors are keen to maximise their assets by appearing in other, perhaps more lucrative productions.

Aired 9 November 1997

Anthony Wilson tries to solve the mystery of the Amber Room of the tsars in St. Petersburg, stolen by the Germans and never found.

Aired 23 November 1997 • 51 min

Vilified on its release in 1960 as pornographic, Michael Powell's film Peeping Tom is now regarded by many as a masterpiece.

Aired 30 November 1997

Can flamboyant US ad-man Tony Kaye market himself as a serious artist?

Aired 7 December 1997

Profile of rap artist and writer Tricky, who returns to the Bristol estate where he grew up.

Aired 14 December 1997 • 51 min

Ralph Fiennes, Harriet Walter, and the rest of the Almeida Theatre Company earlier this year took their acclaimed production of Chekhov's Ivanov back to its roots in Moscow.

Aired 20 December 1997 • 51 min

Returning from exile, Joe Mogotsi of the legendary Manhattan Brothers, takes us on a cinematic journey into the virtuosity, exuberance and resistance of South African jazz. Joe reconnects with jazz greats Hugh Masekela and Abdullah Ibrahim as he seeks justice, recognition, and recompense for the Manhattan Brothers’ extraordinary catalogue of music.

Aired 28 June 1998

Through the story of the Gutmann family's quest to recover the art collection stolen by the Nazis from their parents, questioning the international art market's collusion in Nazi art looting.

Aired 19 July 1998 • 51 min

Back in the 1960s, the novelist Anaïs Nin was acclaimed as a feminist icon when her revelatory diaries were published. But she had omitted much of her bigamous past, and it is only now that a complete picture of this secretive writer is emerging.

Aired 26 July 1998

The theft of a Caravaggio from a Palermo church nearly 30 years ago shocked the art world. Since then, art has come to play an integral part in the laundering of the proceeds of crime. Reviewing some of the most famous stolen works of art.

Aired 2 August 1998

Art-world orthodoxy holds that Bacon did not prepare or rehearse his paintings. But Bacon's friend and neighbour Barry Joule has revealed an enormous cache of sketches and treated photographs he claims Bacon left to him.

Aired 9 August 1998

Restoration of frescoes in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, badly damaged in a 1997 earthquake, is being held up.

Aired 16 August 1998 • 51 min

American piano tuner Ben Treuhaft tries to get pianos into Cuba.

Aired 29 August 1998

Tells the story of five people who auditioned to become Monkees but failed to make the cut. Their feelings about it range from relief to embarrassment, self-justification, and regret.

Aired 6 September 1998

The 40-member cast of Paul Simon's Broadway musical disaster The Capeman grapple with the staging of the controversial show based on a true story about a 16-year-old Puerto Rican kid, Sol Agron, who murdered two people in the 1950s.

Aired 27 December 1998

The restoration of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous masterpiece, The Last Supper, produced results some call glorious and others call tragic. Da Vinci’s famously fragile fresco was always going to be a challenge for its secretive Italian restorers. No one, however, could have foreseen how problematic and strange their task would become. Marked by a series of extraordinary mishaps, mistakes, and miscalculations, the incredible restoration is hilarious to watch but may have resulted in the loss of a masterpiece.

Aired 10 January 1999

Imaginative use of archive footage and interviews to examine how Lenin achieved mythical status, and why his death is still mourned by some in Russia.

Aired 8 August 1999

James Turrell is famous for creating the world's largest piece of "land art" - reshaping a volcano. But he has also built a giant camera obscura on a Cornish hillside to record the eclipse image.