For the first time on television, Arena tells the whole story of the life and work of TS Eliot including the happiness he found in the last years of life in his second marriage. His widow Valerie Eliot has opened her personal archive, hitherto unseen, including the private scrapbooks and albums in which Eliot assiduously recorded their life together.
Arena brings an unprecedented insight into the mysterious life of one of the 20th century's greatest poets, and re-examines his extraordinary work and its startling immediacy in the world today. Thomas Stearns Eliot materialises as banker, critic, playwright, children's writer, churchwarden, publisher, husband and poet.
Contributors include Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, Lady Spender, Jeanette Winterson, Christopher Ricks and Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

The National Theatre is 50 in October 2013 and has given the BBC unprecedented access to make two Arena documentaries for BBC Four.
The films ask why it took until 1963 to create a National Theatre, and Dame Joan Plowright talks frankly to director Adam Low about the appointment of her husband Laurence Olivier, the greatest actor of his generation, as the National's first artistic director. The films uncover the life of the Theatre's early golden period at the Old Vic, the National's first home, under the towering presence of Olivier; the commissioning and construction of the controversial and now iconic Denys Lasdun building on the South Bank; and the turbulent succession of Peter Hall at the end of Olivier's reign.
Through the personal anecdotes of those who wrote, directed and performed on the National's many stages the films reveal the stories behind the greatest hit productions, from Olivier's Othello to War Horse, under artistic directors Peter Hall, Richard Eyre, Trevor Nunn and up to and including the latest great successes under Nicholas Hytner. Other contributors include Maggie Smith, Derek Jacobi, Alan Bennett, Judi Dench, Francis de la Tour, David Hare, Alan Ayckbourn and Adrian Lester.

Documentary showcasing the life and works of surrealist artist Salvador Dali.

A profile of British painter Francis Bacon.

The Dreams of William Golding reveals the extraordinary life of one of the greatest English writers of the 20th century.
With unprecedented access to the unpublished diaries in which Golding recorded his dreams, the film penetrates deep into his private obsessions and insecurities.
His daughter Judy and son David both speak frankly about their father's demons, and the film follows Golding from the impoverished schoolmaster whose first novel, Lord of the Flies, was published when he was forty-three years old, to his winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1983.
Other contributors include Golding's biographer John Carey, philosopher John Gray, writer Nigel Williams, the dean of Salisbury Cathedral, the Very Revd June Osborne and best-selling author Stephen King.
Benedict Cumberbatch, who starred in the 2004 BBC adaptation of Golding's sea trilogy To the Ends of the Earth, reads extracts from his books.

The second part of the film star's life from the release of VICTIM (1961) to the author's death in 1999.

The first part of a televisual life of the film actor who died in 1999, drawing on new video footage from the archive of Bogarde's long-term partner and manager Anthony Forwood.

Inspired by his acerbic and often hilarious diaries, this documentary shows Alan Bennett as he has never been seen before. The film follows Bennett to New York, the scene of his early triumph in Beyond the Fringe; to his community library in Primrose Hill which, he despairs, some would rather see turned into a pizza restaurant; to the East Coast railway line, which he would like to see renationalised; and to the village in Yorkshire he calls home.
Intimate encounters, filmed over a year, reveal a writer who is bemused by his own popularity and is still as angry and irreverent in his 80s as he was in his 20s. Leafing through private photographs, Bennett reflects on his modest beginnings and his enduring gratitude to a welfare state that paid for his education and looked after his parents in their old age. With a satirical force that has never left him, he also attacks the politics of today.

The National Theatre is 50 in October 2013 and has given the BBC unprecedented access to make two Arena documentaries for BBC Four.
In the second film Peter Hall, Richard Eyre, Trevor Nunn and Nicholas Hytner talk about running the new National Theatre - the biggest job in the British theatre - from its opening by the Queen in 1976 through the strikes which nearly forced it to close in the 1970s, clashes with the government, the controversy of the play Romans in Britain, to the fulfilment of Olivier's original dream with the huge success of shows like Amadeus, Guys and Dolls, War Horse and One Man Two Guvnors.
With contributions from Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, James Corden and many others.

One of the UK's national treasures, author, playwright and Beyond the Fringe founding member Alan Bennett scored a huge hit with his play The Habit of Art, about a fictional meeting between composer Benjamin Britten and poet W.H. Auden. Adam Low directs this revealing and entertaining behind-the-scenes look at the man and his art.

International EMMY and Prix Italia winning profile of one of Italy's finest directors, Luchino Visconti.