BBC Arts

The extraordinary life of playwright, singer, actor, composer, and director Noël Coward, who rose from poverty to stardom while keeping his sexuality a secret. Featuring Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Frank Sinatra, Michael Caine and Lucille Ball. Narrated by Alan Cumming. With Rupert Everett as the voice of Noël Coward. Directed by Academy Award Nominee Barnaby Thompson.

As good as any Dickens novel, this is the triumphant and tragic story of the greatest architectural dynasty of the 19th century. Dan Cruickshank charts the rise of Sir George Gilbert Scott to the very heights of success, the fall of his son George Junior and the rise again of his grandson Giles. It is a story of architects bent on a mission to rebuild Britain. From the Romantic heights of the Midland Hotel at St Pancras station to the modern image of Bankside power station (now Tate Modern), this is the story of a family that shaped the Victorian age and left a giant legacy.

London: The Modern Babylon is legendary director Julien Temple's epic time-traveling voyage to the heart of his hometown.

A mother finds photos of the life her son would have lived if he didn't pass away.

Inspired by a powerful involuntary mania which took hold of citizens in the city of Strasbourg just over five hundred years ago, this film is a collaboration in isolation with some of the greatest dancers working today.

Set during the years between the "Rebecca" trial and the writing of Du Maurier's short story "The Birds", including her relationship with her husband Frederick 'Boy' Browning, and her largely unrequited infatuations with American publishing tycoon's wife Ellen Doubleday and the actress Gertrude Lawrence.

The Ruins Of Empires is an innovative performance piece by Hip Hop Artist and writer Akala. It is an abridged version of his epic poem of the same name and is a personal interpretation of history as told through the 'knowledge seeker' performed by Akala himself. He follows the course of mans evolution, via astral travel and multiple reincarnations, in an attempt to discover the cause of the rise and fall of Empires. It is driven by a musical score by Mala and Paul Gladstone-Reid and combines innovative animation techniques and emerging technology with some of the most ground breaking creative talents in the industry, under the creative guidance of Andy Serkis and The Imaginarium.

A girl haunted by traumatic events takes us on a mesmerising journey through 100 years of horror cinema to explore how filmmakers scare us – and why we let them.

While touring to promote her second studio album "Sucker", Charli XCX tackles what feminism ('the f-word') really means to women in the music industry in a series of interviews with other pop artists.

Reading Gaol, England, 1896. Prisoner C33, starving and thin, unable to wash properly, is a brilliant writer, husband and father of two, once the most beloved artist in Victorian London. His real name is Oscar Wilde.

The Skeleton Wummin rests at the bottom of the cold sea, withering away in the passing tides and dreaming of life above the waves, in this vivid and poetically eerie Scots-language fable.

Dream city, Sin City, a mirage in the desert, Las Vegas is a film set in its own right, a piece of pop art, an outdoor museum of American culture. What is the story behind the neon lights and fantastical buildings? What will its future be in these tough times? Alan Yentob takes a mob tour and talks to producers and performers about the golden days when Sinatra and Dino held the stage, and the wise guys called the shots.

A lonely lesbian plagued with thoughts of fruit whenever she attempts to masturbate begins to develop her own sexual prowess.  Everything changes when Mina meets confident Georgia in the fruit aisle of a supermarket. With this newfound lesbian companion, a quick prayer to her “Celesbian” icons, and a flurry of new feelings inside of her, Mina starts to clear the oranges, pomegranates, melons, and apples from her brain.

In 1968, Jackie Collins published her first novel The World Is Full of Married Men to remarkable success and immediate scandal. Over the next decades, Collins would go on to build an empire writing books where female agency came first. Jackie Collins’ women were unapologetic about their needs and their sexual desire, and to her devoted readers, Collins became a symbol of the effortless power that defined her heroines.

Giselle is the quintessential Romantic ballet. Its title role, one of the most technically demanding and emotionally challenging in the classical repertory, is here danced by Alina Cojocaru, partnered by Johan Kobborg as Count Albrecht. This tale of the transcendental power of love over death is evocatively portrayed through Peter Wright’s sensitive staging and John Macfarlane’s designs, which beautifully contrast the human and supernatural worlds – mastered from a High Definition recording and true surround sound. Conductor : Boris Gruzin Orchestra : The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

The BBC Symphony Orchestra perform a live soundtrack in this premier stage adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes thriller.

The 1916 Battle of the Somme remains the most famous battle of World War I, remembered for its bloodshed and its limited territorial gains. What is often overlooked, however, is the literary importance of the Somme: more writers and poets fought in it than in any other battle in history. Narrated by Michael Sheen, War of Words: Soldier-Poets of the Somme details the experiences of the poets and writers who served in the battle. The work of Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, David Jones, Isaac Rosenberg and JRR Tolkien (who arrived at the Western Front with ambitions to be a poet) was informed and transformed by the battle. Taken together, their experiences allow us to see this dreadful historical event through multiple points of view. The film uses animation, documentary accounts, surviving artefacts, battalion war diaries and the landscape itself to reconnect this literature to the events that inspired it.

Few musicals can claim to capture the mood of a historical period as well as the 1972 classic Cabaret. Liza Minnelli's unforgettable portrayal of singer Sally Bowles and the film's stylish recreation of the era have become defining images of Weimar Berlin. In this documentary, actor Alan Cumming explores the truths behind the fiction. He meets many of those closely involved with the original film, including Liza Minnelli, and talks to cabaret artists, among them acclaimed performer Ute Lemper. Alan explores the origins of the Cabaret story in the writings of Christopher Isherwood and uncovers the story of the real life Sally Bowles, a woman very different from her fictional counterpart. He talks to the composer of Cabaret about the inspiration for the film's most famous songs and discovers the stories of the original composers and performers, among them Marlene Dietrich. Finally, Alan reveals the tragic fate of many of the cabaret artists at the hands of the Nazis.

A pioneering artist and cultural icon. His work is a history of 20th-century America. A country reinventing itself - as seen through the legendary artist's eyes.

Mark Gatiss steps into the mind of M.R. James, the enigmatic English master of the supernatural story. How did this donnish Victorian bachelor, conservative by nature and a devout Anglican, come to create tales that continue to chill readers more than a century on? Mark attempts to uncover the secrets of James's inspiration, taking an atmospheric journey from James's childhood home in Suffolk to Eton, Cambridge and France, venturing into ancient churches, dark cloisters and echoing libraries along the way.