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18 Episodes 1989 - 1990
Episode 1
43 mins
Episode 2
43 mins
Episode 3
43 mins
Episode 4
43 mins
Episode 5
60 mins
Episode 6
43 mins
Episode 7
43 mins
Episode 8
43 mins
Episode 9
43 mins
Episode 10
43 mins
Documentary celebrating the founding of Ronnie Scott's Jazz club in 1959. Scott, a rising young saxophone player, opened a club where he and his friends could play the music they liked. Over the following years, the club had its ups and downs, reflecting the changes in attitudes to jazz and the social life of surrounding Soho. Now Ronnie Scott's is known throughout the world as the hear-beat of British jazz. In this tribute, Omnibus talks to some of Ronnie's greatest admirers including Mel Brooks, the Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke MP and writer Alan Plater, and features rare archive footage of some of the club's historic performances by Zoot Sims, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald.
Episode 11
43 mins
Episode 12
43 mins
Episode 13
43 mins
Episode 14
60 mins
How many of us could write a book with the impact of Lolita? The task, as revealed in the BBC Omnibus documentary above, lay almost beyond even the formidable literary powers of Vladimir Nabokov - almost, but obviously not quite. It did push him into new aesthetic, cultural, and compositional realms, as evidenced by his memories of drafting the novel on index cards in roadside motels (and when faced with especially noisy or drafty accommodations, in the backseat of the parked car) while road-tripping though the United States. The documentary's subject is the exiled aristocrat novelist's experience writing and publishing Lolita, the book that would make him world-famous - as well as the experience that brought him to the time and place that made such a cultural coup possible.
Episode 15
43 mins
Michael Billington, drama critic of The Guardian newspaper, explores the life and work of Alan Ayckbourn, including his latest play due to open in London - Man of the Moment - and also conducts an interview with the playwright and director.
Episode 16
50 mins
Episode 17
60 mins
Episode 18
100 mins
Golden Globe nominee Linus Roache stars as troubled painter Vincent van Gogh in this drama from the BBC's "Omnibus" series. Struggling to make ends meet first as an art dealer, then as a missionary in a coal mine, van Gogh was tormented by elusive love and madness. After notoriously cutting off his ear and spending a year in an asylum, we see the artists struggles and passions throughout his life.