Everyman

Ten weeks ago the Old Bailey saw the start of the first trial for blasphemy in this country for over half a century. Begun by Mary Whitehouse against the homosexual newspaper Gay News, it ended in a conviction, heavy fines and a suspended prison sentence for the editor. An appeal is pending. Was this prosecution an attack on free speech? Or was it a necessary defence of the principle that, even in a permissive society, some things must remain sacred? This dramatised documentary reconstructs the crucial moments of this historic trial, and explores the issues it raises. Peter France questions the people on both sides, including Mary Whitehouse and Denis Lemon, Editor, Gay News, about their actions and reactions during the case.

Sport has always been a competition for physical supremacy, but many leading athletes today are discovering that it can play a radically deeper part in their lives: that sport can be their path to enlightenment. Ian Thompson: "I get out of running what a lot of people get out of going to church." Arthur Ashe: "It's like having a nervous breakdown but you don't care." David Hemery: "Sport can be a Western form of zen." The inner game is both a technique and a philosophy of sport. Tim Gallwey, author of "The Inner Game of Tennis", teaches Peter France the technique by means of a tennis lesson: "You learn control only when you lose control." Racing driver Jackie Stewart, tennis players Arthur Ashe and Mark Cox, cricketer Mike Brearley, marathon-runner Ian Thompson, hurdler David Hemery, report on their personal experiences of the wider philosophy: that sport is the ideal means of fusing body, mind and spirit; and can generate ecstatic states surprisingly similar to those described by religious mystics.

After the bombs had fallen Coventry was rebuilt as a model city community based on civic wealth and personal reconciliation. People from all over the world came to claim a share of the city's industrial riches - and now a Coventry kid is as likely to be a Moslem or a Geordie. The wealth is no longer there but the will to co-operate still lingers. This film is about Coventrians, their city and their beliefs, and at the time of the most fundamental Christian festival they look forward to their children's spring awakening in Coventry.

An Everyman film for Easter- Oberammergau - a tiny village in the Bavarian Alps, but a world-famous one. For one summer season every decade the villagers perform the Passion of Christ, and hundreds of thousands of spectators come to see it. The play is a spectacular act of faith: it goes back nearly 350 years, involves virtually every member of the village, lasts five hours in performance and is, in scale and longevity, unique. But for more than a decade, the play has also been the source of great controversy. Is it anti-Semitic? Does it project the right image of Christianity? Should it be replaced, or changed, or even stopped? The controversy has been considered at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church, and has also divided the village into warring camps, as first one faction, then another, has gained control. Oberammergau performed the play last summer for the 34th time. In this special Easter film Everyman presents excerpts from it, and reports on a controversy whose impl

At the Battle of the Somme in 1916 one-and-a-quarter million men were killed. Those who survived can never forget. They are now in their 90s. Some still have nightmares, others are haunted by guilt. This film explores the legacy of pain and anguish dealt by a battle fought 75 years ago.