Award-winning director Jana Bokova presents a typically idiosyncratic portrait of Europe's most fashionable city. An equally eccentric and fascinating collection of characters offer a personal view of Barcelona, where a new cosmopolitan awareness sits alongside the proud Catalan sense of place and history.

Randy Travis is the hottest new singer on the country music scene today. In June last year he played his first British concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, before an ecstatic audience. Arena filmed this performance and tonight presents the best in "back to basics" country music.

With more visitors than the whole of Greece and more holiday beds than Portugal, Blackpool is Europe's most successful holiday resort. Growing to prominence in the Industrial Revolution it was a town "built for fun". Arena takes a look at this town, famous for its Tower, illuminations, formidable landladies and party political conferences. Exploring the British at work and play we visit the nightclubs, clairvoyants, politicians and guesthouses.

Breasts/bosoms/bust/boobs/bristols/knockers... we live in a breast-obsessed society, and "tits" are by no means the preserve of the tabloids; the symbolism of the breast is expressed in film, fashion and filth. From body beautiful to breast bondage these twin peaks have become a fountainhead of contradictions. The film looks at the ways in which the bosom is idealised and the means by which it is trivialised and denigrated.

Two films by award-winning director Georg Troller, made for West German television's arts programme 'Personenbeschriebung'. Sir Laurens van der Post is the subject of the first film. Known in the popular press as a friend and mentor of Prince Charles, Sir Laurens has devoted his life to drawing the world's attention to the plight of Africa's threatened tribes. The second film is a portrait of Texan criminal Albert Sample, whose autobiography Racehoss tells the harrowing story of his 16-year sentence for armed robbery in a notorious Texan prison, and subsequent rehabilitation.

Beyond the familiar world of Wall Street and Madison Avenue, there is another New York, whose roots lie in West and Central Africa. Successive waves of newcomers of African descent have brought to the world's most glamorous city their own gods, myths and rituals. Robert Farris Thompson, Professor of Art History at Yale University, has been tracking down the survival of African traditions in New York.

The absurdity of life has been Eugene lonesco's theme and preoccupation since he wrote the first of his 33 plays and, alongside Beckett and Genet, created a revolution in the theatre. Ironically, that first play, 'The Bald Prima Donna', has become the Parisian 'Mousetrap', running non-stop for over 30 years and 10,000 performances. Tonight's Arena assesses the life and work of one of the century's outstanding dramatists, who, at 77, remains an unrepentant champion of the Theatre of the Absurd.

Actor and director John Cassavetes, who died earlier this month, was one of the few truly independent movie-makers working out of Hollywood. In this tribute to an influential and innovative artist, friends, associates and fellow directors remember the man and his work.

Ten years ago Vernon Oxford turned his back on the bright lights of Nashville and a life as a popular country singer, and gave himself to the Lord. Today, he is a gospel preacher in Franklin, Tennessee, but his congregation extends beyond his own community in the southern states of America. He takes his mission to his spiritual cousins in Northern Ireland, who share the same fundamentalist Protestant beliefs. Tonight's film follows Oxford from Nashville to Belfast as he pursues his healing mission through the houses of God and of the Devil.

Jukeboxes once entertained bars, diners and roadstops throughout America, but are now highly collectable artifacts, fulfilling the dreams, memories and fantasies of their proud owners. The Americans are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the jukebox this year, but some say an Englishman by the name of Charles Adams-Randall pipped the Americans to the post when he patented a coin-operated phonograph in 1888. Since then the jukebox has found a special way into the Englishman's heart. Arena explores the world of the jukebox in England and finds that, if an Englishman's home is his castle, then surely no castle could be complete without one of these fine articles.

Arena continues its centenary celebration of the jukebox with a special edition of one of the original pop music programmes. 'Juke Box Jury' is 30 years old and was essential weekend viewing for every pop music fan throughout the 60s. David Jacobs is back in the chair spinning this week's new releases in the famous Rock-ola. On the special jury for the music world this evening are Pete Murray and Dusty Springfield, who were regular panellists on the original series, and newcomers Phil Collins and Sarah Jane Morris.

Born in Georgia in 1901, Berthold Lubetkin is one of the most outstanding and influential architects in Britain. His life has spanned the Russian Revolution and two World Wars. Finally, in 1982 he was awarded the highest honour the RIBA can grant - the Royal Gold Medal - in belated recognition of his achievements. Best known for the abstract elegance of the Penguin Pool at London Zoo, he remains an isolated figure constantly fighting bureaucracy and indifference; he has remained an unapologetic champion of the ideals of modernism while fiercely attacking many of its most celebrated exponents. In tonight's Arena Richard Rogers, Peter Palumbo, Lord Zuckerman and others assess the unique influence that Lubetkin has had on generations of architects.

Ever since its noisy birth out of the primitive fuzzboxes of the 1960s, heavy metal music has been maligned and misunderstood by public and critics alike. But, to its millions of fans worldwide, heavy metal is the only form of popular music with any integrity, the true keeper of the eternal flame of rock'n'roll. This is an exploration of the music in all its aspects, from its origins in the blues to the Black Country and beyond. Profiled are Jimmy Page, Ozzy Osbourne, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Guns 'n' Roses, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Jimi Hendrix, Kiss, David Lee Roth and Napalm Death - and the heavy metal event of the year at Castle Donington.

For some 25 years Graham Greene has found himself the victim of a bizarre masquerade. A man calling himself Graham Greene has opened hotels, courted high society in the south of France and was entertained by tea planters in India convincd he was the real Graham Greene. But is 'the other' Greene a decoy invented by the secretive Greene to confuse and deceive his chosen biographer Norman Sherry?

"Look at the clocks - it doesn't matter if they're wrong. Somewhere in the world the time is right." A typical line from Slim Gaillard. He became a jazz legend, collaborating with Charlie Parker; he was a Second World War bomber pilot; Marvin Gaye's father-in-law; and is fluent in Greek, Arabic, Spanish and his own 'Vout-o-Reenee' language; he appeared in 25 films including 'Hellzapoppin'' and 'Roots'; and drove a hearse for the notorious Purple Gang. Since he was stranded alone in Crete, aged 12, on a voyage from his native Cuba, Slim's life has been a spectacular, and sometimes traumatic, adventure. He tells his amazing story over four episodes with Dizzy Gillespie, Van Morrison, his and Marvin Gaye's family, Frankie Laine (whom he discovered), and the peanut that went to the moon.

In 1938 jazz legend and international star Slim Gaillard went to Hollywood to appear in 'Hellzapoppin'' - and then war broke out. Gaillard became one of America's first black bomber pilots; this week he recalls that profound and traumatic experience. With the help of Van Morrison he re-enacts a famous encounter with his beat disciple, novelist Jack Kerouac; he settles an old score with Little Richard; appears on America's craziest chat show; and meets the peanut that went to the moon.

This week Slim Gaillard cooks dinner for his old friend Dizzy Gillespie. They discuss the English language and their contributions to it - "bebop" and "Vout-o-reenee". They also recall working with Charlie Parker, and conjure up the ghosts of the other great names of 52nd Street in its jazz heyday. And from Hollywood - memories of the days when the likes of Bob Hope and Marlene Dietrich were swapping items from Gaillard's Vout-o-reenee dictionary.

This week Slim Gaillard's story comes up to date. Today he lives a life of gentlemanly leisure in London pursuing an interest in golf, snooker and the occasional appearance at international jazz festivals. From the fireside in his club he surveys his film career, looking back on roles in 'Roots', 'Absolute Beginners' and 'Planet of the Apes'. He introduces us to his family - in particular his daughter, who married Marvin Gaye. He goes down to the station early in the morning to see the little puffa-billys all in a row, and reveals all about the girl in the test card.

Some people see the pig as representing dirt, sloth and obesity; others view it with affection. In this film we see them all: farmyard pigs, performing pigs, pigs as pets, piggy banks, pigs on film - in all its many rotund forms.

A film version of Heathcote Williams's epic poem, an impassioned hymn of praise to one of nature's most magnificent creatures, and a lament at man's folly of hunting it to near extinction. The poem is read by its author, intercut with extraordinary film of elephants, and accompanied by a specially composed soundtrack from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

The animals in wildlife films have always been vying for attention with that eccentric breed - the animal presenter. This medley of classic clips of wildlife films from the last 50 years celebrates the naive enthusiasm of these rare creatures and charts the changing attitudes to animals on television.

In the 1920s a middle-aged spinster went to buy a yard of ribbon and came out with a baby gorilla. He was the first gorilla to survive captivity. His uncanny intelligence and versatility became legendary, inspiring King Kong stories. But he came to a tragic end when he was shipped to the Barnum and Bailey circus in New York where he pined for his owner and then 'died of a broken heart'.

What does Sam get up to when he's left on his own all day? This verité portrait looks at an ordinary day in the mysterious life of a very ordinary dog.

Novelist Julian Barnes, philosopher Nicholas Humphrey, and French historian Dr Michel Rousseau help to uncover one of the most bizarre chapters in criminal history: the judicial prosecution and capital punishment of animals throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and beyond.

Vivisection, vegetarianism, farming, sport, zoos, circuses and pets will be some of the topics discussed in a live debate chaired by Donald MacCormick at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Writer Germaine Greer and philosophers Tom Regan and Mary Warnock are among the speakers who debate the motion: "The animal kingdom needs a bill of rights."

An Arena special looking at the career, development and success of the band over the past 25 years, including clips from the Stones' own archives and from the hitherto unseen 'Great Rock'n'Roll Circus' of 1969, made in answer to the Beatles' 'Magical Mystery Tour'. It traces in detail the high and low points of the group over the years, and their present continuing success.