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After 200 years under lock and key, all the personal papers of one of our most important monarchs are for the first time seeing the light of day. In the first documentary to gain extensive access to the Royal Archives, Robert Hardman sheds fascinating new light on George III, Britain's longest reigning king. George III may be chiefly remembered for his madness, but these private documents reveal a monarch who was a political micromanager and a restless patron of science and the arts, an obsessive traveller who never left southern England yet toured the world in his mind and a man who was driven (sometimes to distraction) by his sense of duty to his family and his country. Featuring Simon Callow and Sian Thomas as the voices of King George and Queen Charlotte.
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.
Britain and Turkey had not always enjoyed the ‘special’ friendship referred to in the commentary. Their armies were on opposing sides in the First World War and there had been disagreementt over the future of Cyprus in the run up to the settlement of 1960. In the 1960s relations improved and this reciprocal tour (the President of Turkey, Cevdet Sunay, had paid a state visit to the United Kingdom in November 1967) was regarded as a milestone in the bilateral alliance between the two countries. The camera affords the viewer a prime vantage point by which to marvel at the splendour of the pageantry and contemplate every nuance of gesture and sartorial detail. As we linger on the bejewelled Queen waiting patiently at the British Embassy in Ankara to greet her guests we wonder what it might be like to be in her shoes.
Decades after her untimely death, Princess Diana continues to evoke mystery, glamour, and the quintessential modern fairy tale gone wrong. As a symbol of both the widening fissures weakening the British monarchy and the destructive machinery of the press, the Princess of Wales navigated an unparalleled rise to fame and the corrosive challenges that came alongside it. Crafted entirely from immersive archival footage and free from the distraction of retrospective voices, this hypnotic and audaciously revealing documentary takes a distinctive formal approach, allowing the story of the People’s Princess to unfold before us like never before.
This is the story of how a prince became a king, a revealing portrait of our new monarch across the seven decades he spent as heir to the throne. It’s a journey from cradle to crown told almost solely in his own words, from film and television recordings to private home movies and featuring a wealth of material, some of which has never been seen before. As well as drawing on home movies from the Royal Collection, the film-makers were given exclusive access to sequences featuring the prince, shot for the landmark 1969 film Royal Family, including private unseen moments.
25 Years is an impressionistic survey of the years from the Queen's accession to the throne in 1952 through to her Silver Jubilee in 1977. Combining archive and contemporary footage - including that of the royal visit to Canada and the US in 1976, the bicentenary year of American independence - the film explores the monarchy through a quarter-century which saw the conquest of Everest, the development of television as a mass medium, the first supersonic flight and space exploration. Through good times and bad, and tumultuous changes for better or for worse, one factor remained constant: the monarchy, in the person of Queen Elizabeth II, provided a continuity and stability which this film celebrates in her Silver Jubilee year.
Honeymooners, tourists and surfers flock to Hawaiian shores every year, but life wasn't always serene in the tropical paradise. In the 1890s, the islands -- ruled by Queen Liliuokalani -- faced financial ruin thanks to colonial business interests and the U.S. government, which rescinded Hawaii's preferential sugar market position. "The American Experience" recounts the events and intrigues that resulted in the monarch's ouster ... at gunpoint.
