Francis Whately

Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast mainly on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The programme was the successor to the long-running arts-based series 'Monitor'. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings. During its 35-year history, the programme won 12 Bafta awards. Among the series' best remembered documentaries are Cracked Actor, a profile of David Bowie, and Rene Magritte, a graduate film by David Wheatley, 'Madonna: Behind the American dream', a film produced by Nadia Hagger, and a profile of the British film director Ridley Scott. For a season in 1982, the series was in a magazine format presented by Barry Norman. The series was replaced by 'Imagine' hosted by Alan Yentob.

A definitive landmark series charting the emergence and re-emergence of rock music as a global force, told through the musicians who have shaped this most enduring of genres.

This documentary celebrates one of Britain’s greatest actors, Dame Judi Dench, and looks back over her remarkable 60-year career.

Nigel Spivey reveals how the images which surround us today come from the ancient world. It's an epic journey spanning five continents and a hundred thousand years of history.

In the last five years of his life, David Bowie ended nearly a decade of silence to engage in an extraordinary burst of activity, producing two groundbreaking albums and a musical. David Bowie: The Last Five Years explores this unexpected end to a remarkable career. Made with remarkable access, Francis Whately’s documentary is a revelatory follow-up to his acclaimed 2013 documentary David Bowie: Five Years, which chronicled Bowie’s golden ‘70s and early-‘80s period.

This is the story of the veterans who fought in the 5th Royal Tank Regiment - a team of ordinary men who faced the frontline in both Europe and beyond. Their involvement in the Second World War spanned the humiliating defeat at Dunkirk, victory in the deserts of North Africa and finally saw resentment and revolt before D-Day. Based on the unpublished diaries and memoirs of the men who were thrust together in extraordinary circumstances to fight Hitler and his forces, this program uses drama and documentary to bring their stories to life.

Andrew Marr explores how Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection has taken on a life of its own far beyond the world of science.

Dolly Parton leads a moving, musical journey in this documentary that details the people and places who have helped shape her iconic career.

Featuring a wealth of previously unseen archive, this film looks at how Bowie continually evolved: from Ziggy Stardust to the Soul Star of Young Americans, to the ‘Thin White Duke’. It explores his regeneration in Berlin with the critically acclaimed album Heroes, his triumph with Scary Monsters and his global success with Let’s Dance. With interviews with all his closest collaborators, David Bowie - Five Years presents a unique account of why Bowie has become an ‘icon of our times’.

Documentary looking into the history, origins, and highlights of the UK’s biggest music festival.

Author Ben Macintyre explores the truth behind one of the most famous double agents in modern history - Harold Kim Philby. He argues that Philby has become a caricature of the gentleman spy, obscuring the fact that Philby was a ruthless killer, who betrayed everyone around him. The key to Philby's success and his survival, Macintyre explains, lay in his friendship with a man that history has largely forgotten - Nicholas Elliott. Elliott was Philby's colleague in MI6 who befriended him, defended him, and unwittingly supplied him with secrets until he discovered the truth. This is the remarkable tale of two friends and two spies, each working on opposite sides in the Cold War.

Coming 50 years after the release of Space Oddity, the 90-minute film explores the Bowie before Ziggy Stardust, following the period from 1966 when he changed his name from David Jones to Bowie. It includes footage from the BBC Archives including footage of a BBC audition in 1965 of David Bowie and the Lower Third, which included a performance of Chim-Chim-Cheree and Baby That's A Promise.

Film shining a spotlight on the untold story of The Sidemen, the musicians behind some of the greatest artists of all time. The Sidemen are the forgotten 'guns for hire' that changed musical history. Featuring interviews with Mick Jagger, Billy Joel and Keith Richards, this film takes viewers from the 1960s to today, via global stars such as Prince, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones and Beyoncé.

Bestselling crime writer Patricia Cornwell has set herself her toughest assignment yet - discovering the true identity of Jack the Ripper, widely seen as the world's first serial killer. Cornwell applies 21st Century scientific methods to these century-old crimes and is now convinced she knows the Ripper's identity. But how will her evidence be received?

Lord Ashdown, a former special forces commando, tells the story of the 'Cockleshell Heroes', who led one of the most daring and audacious commando raids of World War II. In 1942, Britain was struggling to fight back against Nazi Germany. Lacking the resources for a second front, Churchill encouraged innovative and daring new methods of combat. Enter stage left, Blondie Hasler. With a unit of 12 Royal Marine commandos, Major Blondie Hasler believed his 'cockleshell' canoe could be effectively used in clandestine attacks on the enemy. Their brief was to navigate the most heavily defended estuary in Europe, to dodge searchlights, machine-gun posts and armed river-patrol craft 70 miles downriver, and then to blow up enemy shipping in Bordeaux harbour. Lord Ashdown recreates parts of the raid and explains how this experience was used in preparing for one of the greatest land invasions in history, D-day.

Country music is changing — or maybe it’s returning to its roots. This musical documentary traces the troubled history and inclusive future of the genre with performances from today's most talented iconoclasts, including Blanco Brown, Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, and BRELAND.

Rare footage of a 1998 film where David Bowie discusses the British artist Richard Devereux’s work: In Stillness and In Silence.

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.

Rembrandt van Rijn has been described as the greatest artist of the Dutch school of the Seventeenth Century. Thoughout his life he obsessively painted a series of self-portraits which now act as a visual autobiography.