About this season
Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast mainly on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The programme was the successor to the long-running arts-based series 'Monitor'. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings. During its 35-year history, the programme won 12 Bafta awards. Among the series' best remembered documentaries are Cracked Actor, a profile of David Bowie, and Rene Magritte, a graduate film by David Wheatley, 'Madonna: Behind the American dream', a film produced by Nadia Hagger, and a profile of the British film director Ridley Scott. For a season in 1982, the series was in a magazine format presented by Barry Norman. The series was replaced by 'Imagine' hosted by Alan Yentob.
Episodes (26)
1. Wild Swans
Aired 28 September 1993
2. Korda: I Don't Grow on Trees: Part One
Aired 5 October 1993
3. Nina Simone -The Legend
Aired 12 October 1993
4. Korda: I Don't Grow on Trees: Part Two
Aired 12 October 1993
5. Sweet Home Chicago
Aired 19 October 1993 • 46 min
When southern blues musicians moved north in the years after the war Chicago was an obvious destination, offering day jobs in Industry and night work in the clubs. Of the record labels reflecting this migration the most successful was Chess, and the fascinating story of Chicago blues is therefore also a procession through the tiny Chess studios, from Muddy Waters to the Roiling Stones, who took their name from one of Waters's songs and helped spread the music to Europe. Mick Jagger talks of his debt to Chicago blues, and the great survivors like Buddy Guy tell their own tale, interspersed with priceless archive footage of artists like Chuck Berry , Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter.
6. Houdini
Aired 26 October 1993
7. The Magic Lantern
Aired 2 November 1993
8. The Russian Striptease
Aired 9 November 1993
9. Everything You Wanted to Know About Conductors But Were Afraid to Ask
Aired 23 November 1993
10. The Boy Next Door
Aired 30 November 1993
A portrait of Boy George. UK telly. Early 90s. Crying Game US release era.
11. Who Killed Tchaikovsky
Aired 7 December 1993
A hundred years ago Tchaikovsky died suddenly In St Petersburg, within days of conducting the work many consider to be his greatest, the Pathétique Symphony. How did the great composer meet his death? Officially, he died of cholera, but a Russian emigre living in America has produced evidence to show that he was forced to commit suicide. Anthony Holden conducts an investigation into the mystery, and the film follows clues in New York, St Petersburg and Moscow, clues within the music and the known facts of Tchaikovsky's life, in search of the facts behind the composer's untimely death.
12. Sebastião Salgado: Looking Back at You
Aired 14 December 1993 • 51 min
A documentary that visits Brazil, India and Paris to explore the work of photojournalist Sebastião Salgado, who had been working for seven years on a huge project recording the lives of manual workers throughout the world.
13. Sunset Boulevard
Aired 21 December 1993
A look behind the scenes of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version of the classic movie 'Sunset Boulevard'
14. Freeze, But Is It Art?
Aired 22 February 1994
15. The Piero Trail 1
Aired 23 February 1994
17. Mister Abbott's Broadway
Aired 1 March 1994
18. The Piero Trail 2
Aired 2 March 1994
19. Vikram Seth: A Suitable Boy
Aired 8 March 1994
Profile of the novelist Vikram Seth, including footage from a family reunion in Delhi.
20. Hildegard
Aired 29 March 1994
21. Bill T Jones
Aired 5 April 1994
22. Gielgud: Scenes from 9 Decades
Aired 12 April 1994
23. Joan Littlewood's Lovely War
Aired 19 April 1994
24. Sir John Betjeman
Aired 26 April 1994
25. Duke Ellington 1: Reminiscing in Tempo
Aired 3 May 1994
26. Duke Ellington 2
Aired 10 May 1994
27. Robert Stephens: Every Inch a King
Aired 24 May 1994