Sebastian Barfield

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.

Journalist Fiona Bruce teams up with art expert Philip Mould to investigate the provenance or attribution of notable artworks.

BBC Four’s new documentary takes us on a journey through more than a century of animation. It examines the creative and technical inventiveness of some of the great animation pioneers who have worked in Britain – trailblazing talents such as Len Lye, John Halas and Joy Batchelor, Joanna Quinn, and Bristol’s world-conquering Aardman Animations.

Lucy Worsley travels to Russia to tell the extraordinary story of the dynasty that ruled the country for more than three centuries - the Romanovs.

Lucy Worsley delves into the history of romance to uncover the forces shaping our very British happily ever after and how our feelings have been affected by social, political and cultural ideas.

Delve into a treasure trove of recently unearthed archives to tell a brand new story of Spike Milligan as film, scripts, letters, objects, photographs, recordings, and art all come together to paint a portrait of a comic genius.

An intimate, illuminating and emotionally powerful exploration of Nick Cave’s creative process and enduring influence, told through the eyes of his closest collaborators, friends and the visionaries he’s inspired.

Historian Lucy Worsley presents a series marking the 200th anniversary of one of the most explosive and creative decades in British history, the Regency.

Laura Cumming takes a journey through more than 500 years of self-portraits and finds out how the greatest names in western art transformed themselves into their own masterpieces.

Lucy Worsley tells the story of the royal photograph, showing how the royal family worked with generations of photographers to create images that reinvented the British monarchy.

Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) explores Video Art, revealing how different generations ‘hacked’ the tools of television to pioneer new ways of creating art that can be beautiful, bewildering and wildly experimental.

Lucy Worsley and David Starkey celebrate the 500th anniversary of Britain's finest surviving Tudor building, Hampton Court. As Henry VIII's pleasure palace, Hampton Court was a showcase for royal magnificence and ceremony - and the most important event of all was the christening of Henry's long-awaited son, Prince Edward, on October 15th, 1537. Lucy and David explore how Tudor art, architecture and ritual came together for this momentous occasion. Drawing on historical records and with the help of a team of experts, they recreate key elements of the christening ceremony - including a magnificent set piece procession through Hampton Court involving nearly 100 people in full Tudor costume.

The 1916 Battle of the Somme remains the most famous battle of World War I, remembered for its bloodshed and its limited territorial gains. What is often overlooked, however, is the literary importance of the Somme: more writers and poets fought in it than in any other battle in history. Narrated by Michael Sheen, War of Words: Soldier-Poets of the Somme details the experiences of the poets and writers who served in the battle. The work of Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, David Jones, Isaac Rosenberg and JRR Tolkien (who arrived at the Western Front with ambitions to be a poet) was informed and transformed by the battle. Taken together, their experiences allow us to see this dreadful historical event through multiple points of view. The film uses animation, documentary accounts, surviving artefacts, battalion war diaries and the landscape itself to reconnect this literature to the events that inspired it.