BBC UNVEILS CULTURE, ARTS AND MUSIC PROGRAMMING HIGHLIGHTS

The BBC have unveiled a range of culture, arts and music programming highlights.

A thrilling three-part drama-documentary series, Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty (w/t), co-commission from PBS and the BBC starring Charles Dance as Michelangelo, examines how some of the greatest works of art in the Western world were born out of an era of violence, power politics and rivalry.

Next year also sees a new iteration of the epic series Civilisations, building on the success of the original and its 2018 reincarnation. This time, with the help of experts and museum curators, we’ll unpack the story of how art and artefacts left behind by great civilisations can explain how powerful societies in the ancient world suddenly collapsed.

Following major series about Shakespeare and Mozart, Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius will mark the 250th anniversary of the author’s birth next year. This new drama-documentary series draws on interviews with writers, actors, and biographers to explore how a young woman from a small village living in eighteenth-century England, became our best-loved novelist, creating characters and stories that have become part of our culture ever since.

A major new cultural history series, The History of Us (w/t) is planned for 2025, which finds Simon Schama looking back at the origins of the culture wars which have dominated the headlines in recent years. He’ll show that fierce arguments over who we are have always been at the centre of British life and have helped fuel our greatest asset, our creativity.

Arena re-launched last year, working with some of the UK’s leading filmmakers and championing the best of British documentary-making and creativity, with films on subjects ranging from Caroline Aherne to Kae Tempest to Coco Chanel, and more.

Ahead of the famous strand’s 50th anniversary in 2025, a series of new films have been commissioned exploring a range of subjects, from ballet superstar Steven McRae, broadcaster and musician Clemency Burton-Hill and the opera singer Maria Callas, to the legacy of Loaded magazine and the legendary Roger Moore.

With the acclaimed new documentary strand In My Own Words currently airing on BBC One exploring the lives and careers of some of the UK’s leading cultural figures, such as Billy Connolly, Hanif Kureishi, Jilly Cooper, Jackie Kay and Alison Lapper, a new series has been commissioned for 2025. There is also a very special single film with Alan Bennett, made to coincide with his 90th birthday.

Following the success of their transformative Italian Grand Tour – with an average reach of 2.7 million viewers across the series, the biggest audience for a BBC Two title on iPlayer so far this year – Rob Rinder and Rylan Clark are back for a new adventure in 2025. This time the duo will explore the art and culture of India. Rob and Rylan’s Passage To India (w/t) will delve into a new realm of art, culture and life-altering experiences inspired by E M Forster’s novel, published 100 years ago.

The BBC has over 210 live partnerships this year (23/24) across the arts and culture space, offering unrivalled support for the sector from Big Night of Musicals with the National Lottery, to Blue Peter’s Amazing Authors with The Reading Agency. Hidden Treasures of The National Trust will also be back for a third series next year, working with the Trust to uncover more astounding stories of its properties’ treasures, and the staff and volunteers who look after them.

And for Holocaust Memorial Day in 2025, a special single film will mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The Last Musician of Auschwitz is an extraordinary but little-known story of music made amid the terrors of the Holocaust.

The Read, where acclaimed actors combine with classic literature and breathe new life into iconic stories, launches its third series this autumn. New episodes feature readings of George Orwell’s 1984 performed by Sacha Dhawan; Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol performed by Anne-Marie Duff; Robert Louis Stephenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde performed by Reece Shearsmith and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights performed by Vinette Robinson.

Other highlights from BBC Arts this Autumn include a definitive new series telling the rollercoaster life of Elizabeth Taylor - Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar, out this Friday, featuring previously unheard archive and access to her family; a major new series on Mozart from the team behind Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius featuring Stephen Fry, Sheila Hancock, Richard E Grant, Adjoa Andoh, Chris Addison and a cast of experts and classical music commentators including sopranos Jane Crowe and Golda Schultz, Edward Gardner, David McVicar and more.

More details about the new commissions will be announced in due course.