Sky Arts Documentaries

Comedian Stewart Lee and director Michael Cumming investigate how Prefects and Nightingales frontman Robert Lloyd has survived under the musical radar for more than four decades. Featuring contributions from John Peel, Frank Skinner, Nigel Slater, Robin Askwith, Samira Ahmed, Gina Birch, Marc Riley, John Taylor, Paul Morley and Kevin Eldon.

Maureen Lipman plays Rose in the production, which was be presented on 27 January.Recorded in summer 2020 and directed by Scott Le Crass, Rose follows a Jewish woman who grows up in a Russian village in the early twentieth-century. Travelling around the world, Rose finds herself in different communities, all tolerating Judaistic influences at varying levels.Made a dame in 2020 for services to charity, entertainment and the arts, Maureen Lipman was a part of Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre company in the 1970s. In recent years, Lipman’s West End credits include The Best Man at the Playhouse Theatre and When We Are Married at the Garrick Theatre.

In a thrilling and intimate portrait, Celeste Bell embarks on a journey across three continents to explore the legacy of her mother - X-Ray Spex founder Poly Styrene.

The story of the London venue that - amid strikes, racism and homophobia in 1979 - became the Soho equivalent of Studio 54, frequented by Boy George, Sade and more.

Romeo and Juliet risk everything to be together. In defiance of their feuding families, they chase a future of joy and passion as violence erupts around them. This bold new film brings to life the remarkable backstage spaces of the National Theatre in which desire, dreams and destiny collide to make Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy sing in an entirely new way. Jessie Buckley (Wild Rose, Judy) and Josh O’Connor (The Crown, God’s Own Country) play Juliet and Romeo. The award-winning cast includes Tamsin Greig, Fisayo Akinade, Adrian Lester, Lucian Msamati, Deborah Findlay.

Shamima Begum and Hoda Muthana made it into worldwide headlines when they left their countries as teenagers to join ISIS. Now they want to return but their countries don't want them back.

Stunning restorations of archival work interspersed with commentary from family, friends and collaborators paint a picture of the magical moments of Buster Keaton's life and career.

It's 1967 and the Beatles face a major problem: they are the most famous, commercially successful band ever, but their tax bills could bankrupt them. Their answer is to invest their money in a new company, Apple Corps. Today Apple Corps just runs the Beatles back catalogue, but for five glorious years in the late sixties, it was one of the most colourful, outlandish and chaotic companies that ever existed. The Beatles set up a fashion shop, hair dressing salon, tech start-up (Apple before Apple), poetry division, film production department and of course their own record label. The idea was to spread the values of the new Hippie movement around the world. But things will go wrong, if you drop acid during office hours. In this unauthorised film, the true inside story behind Apple is told by the people who worked for the company, from record label executives and the Beatles personal assistants to the office boys and secretaries. Their inside stories are illustrated by never-before-seen archives of photographs taken in Apple's offices, plus specially-commissioned animation and rare archive footage. What emerges is a comic cautionary tale about the peaks and pitfalls of Hippie-dom. The film is narrated by Peter Coyote, legendary counter-cultural activist, actor and author, who visited Apple's offices with the Hells Angels in 1968 As Beatles longtime assistant Tony Bramwell says "How can you be a Hippie, when you are earning a million pounds a week?"

An extraordinary exhibition exploring a series of spectacular paintings by Vincent van Gogh - Sunflowers, which are among his most famous works.

An affectionate portrait of singer/songwriter Ewan MacColl. Born into a working class family in Salford, England, MacColl found his voice through political theatre before spearheading a revival in folk music in Britain. Interviews include family Peggy Seeger and Calum MacColl, musicians Barbara Dickson and Billy Bragg, and actor Christopher Ecclecton who reads from MacColl's words.

Take a mind-bending journey into Wonderland with this look at the V&A Museum’s immersive exhibition, exploring the origins, adaptations and artistic reinventions of Alice’s adventures across time and media. Discover how Lewis Carroll’s stories have inspired the most creative minds over the last 150 years.

An extension of punk and the fury of the 70s, Grunge was built on the impossibility of living in this world without transforming it. On a categorical refusal to collaborate and the need to create your own rules. The subculture as a refuge. Grunge was a secret movement, a piracy that should never have become popular. A bubble whose epilogue was played out in 3 years, between 1991 and 1994. What happened to this rage?

Thomas Hardy is not the man he appears to be. Combining radical instincts, a hatred of hypocrisy, poetic brilliance and a deep sense of the tragic basis of life, Hardy had a quiet external appearance but internally was a man of seething, gloomy darkness. The author of a series of a brilliant novels, many of which have been made into successful feature films - Tess of the D'Urbevilles, Far from the Madding Crowd and Jude the Obscure - Hardy later in life became a great poet.