The Secret Policeman benefit shows for Amnesty International brought together comedy grand masters - from Python and Beyond the Fringe - and performers then relatively unknown, like Rowan Atkinson. Narrated by Dawn French, the programme includes interviews with many of the comedians and musicians who took part: John Cleese, Stephen Fry, Michael Palin, Sting, Lenny Henry and many more. The shows and their stars had a huge effect on modern British comedy. There are few comics today whose careers have not been heavily influenced by the anarchic and surreal humour of these events.

One of Britain’s greatest landscape artists, Eric Ravilious, is killed in a plane crash while on commission as Official War Artist in Iceland in 1942. His life is as compelling and enigmatic as his art, set against the dramatic wartime locations that inspire him. This film brings to life this unique and still grossly undervalued British artist caught in the crossfire of war 80 years ago, whose legacy largely sank without trace, until now…

HRH The Prince of Wales reveals an extraordinary treasure trove of rarely seen art by members of the Royal Family past and present, exploring a colorful palette of intimate family memory and observation. Filmed at Balmoral, Highgrove, Windsor Castle, Frogmore, and Osborne House, Royal Paintbox features art by members of the Royal Family down the centuries including some of HRH The Prince of Wales's own watercolors.

Margy Kinmonth's new film REVOLUTION - New Art For A New World is a bold and exciting feature documentary that encapsulates a momentous period in the history of Russia and the Russian Avant-Garde.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION This film uncovers the anachronistic and surprising fairytale world of haute couture through its players past and present, featuring rare archive from the BBC vaults. Margy Kinmonth takes a journey from Paris to New York and California to meet both designers and customers in this much talked about but little explained pocket of the fashion industry. Haute couture’s traditional American customers are getting old and dying off now and fewer wealthy young women are taking their place to ensure its survival. She discovers how much has changed and surprisingly how much has stayed the same in this story of decadent decline. Since its heyday after WW 2 the number of fashion houses showing haute couture in Paris has fallen from over a hundred to barely a dozen today. Margy Kinmonth goes behind the scenes at the haute couture giant Chanel as it prepares for the January shows in which its spring/summer collection is launched. We are given a rare interview and glimpse of the famous Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel at work drawing in his studio. We follow the making and complicated construction of one dress to fully understand what “hand made in Paris” really means. Margy interviews John Galliano,Dior’s designer, veteran Italian designer Valentino and French favourite Christian Lacroix. We are treated to vintage archive of early haute couture shows. The film follows key haute couture customers as they visit Paris to see the shows and shop for dresses that can cost up to 100,000 dollars each. Kinmonth asks who are these women and why are they prepared to spend so much money on one dress? There are strict unwritten rules for belonging to this exclusive shopping club.What are they? Why is it all so hush hush? We visit keen haute couture aficionado Betsy Bloomingdale in Los Angeles and see her large collection of haute couture. We meet one of the oldest multi- millionaire collectors in New York City - Carol Petrie whose wedding dress was made by Christian Dior himself in the late 1940’s. We see U. S designer Ralph Rucci’s collection in New York. He is one of the few foreigners allowed to show haute couture in Paris. Texan oil and gas tycoon’s wife Becca Cason Thrash, Susan Gutfreund – wife of the 80’s bond dealer John Gutfreund and Daphne Guinness, a Brit with a passion for haute couture are all interviewed. They mingle on the front rows of the catwalk shows alongside celebrities such as Victoria Beckham. Insider Baroness Helene de Ludinghausen, who was for 31 years the directrice of Yves Saint Laurent, spills the beans about the subject no one ever mentions – how much this frocks cost. Is haute couture now an art form? The customers all think so.

To celebrate its 250th anniversary, this documentary tells the story of one of the world’s greatest museums, from its foundation by Catherine the Great, though to its status today as a breathtakingly beautiful complex which includes the Winter Palace. Showcasing a vast collection of the world’s greatest artworks together with contemporary art galleries and exhibitions, it holds over 3 million treasures and world class masterpieces in stunning architectural settings. This is its journey from Imperial Palace to State Museum, encompassing a sometimes troubled past, surviving both the Revolution in 1916 and the siege of Leningrad by the Nazis in 1941-44.

Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne explores war art and how conflict's compelling stimulus to the imagination has created some of our richest and most powerful artistic inspiration. He takes an intensely emotional journey, visiting artists' studios, museums and travelling to battlefield locations to discover how artists have shone a powerful light into the abyss of warfare, leaving a unique legacy. Redmayne, who studied History of Art at Cambridge University, meets contemporary war artists, soldiers and historians and travels to Flanders where he comes face to face with reminders of the fallen. The First World War had more serving artists than any other war in history. Redmayne explores the iconic canvasses of the Great War - Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer, John Singer Sargent and Henry Tonks, as well as the modernists C.R.W. Nevinson and David Bomberg, whose controversial art responded to the weaponry of the new machine world in revolutionary new forms, changing the artistic landscape forever. Redmayne travels behind the scenes to see war art hidden away from public view - some censored, some never seen on film before. The challenge for artists of depicting war continues today. Redmayne meets contemporary war artists to see how this art form is as vital now as it ever was, including George Butler(Syria) and Graeme Lothian (Afghanistan), reportage artist Julia Midgley and official war artist Peter Howson (Bosnia), whose work was censored.