Arena

Deborah Norton returns with reports, interviews and extracts from what is liveliest and best in the British theatrical scene.

Arena reports on new exhibitions and activities around the country and brings work by artists and designers into the Arena studio.

Jonathan Miller introduces this week's look at what is most stimulating and enjoyable on the theatrical scene.

This week, Arena features American photographer Paul Strand , the subject of an important new exhibition at the National Portrait. Gallery opening on 30 January, and a short season of films at the NFT.
Strand is now considered by many as one of the major artists of the 20th century and his work has done much to establish photography as one of the fine arts. The programme also looks at some recent trends in British photography : the move away from photo-journalism towards a more independent and personal approach, and towards a new kind of social commitment focussed on the community.

Arena goes to Scarborough for the British premiere of a new Alan Ayckbourn play, Just Between Ourselves.
AYCKBOURN is the only contemporary playwright ever to have had five different plays running simultaneously in the West End. Here is a chance to watch the author himself directing his latest play and to follow this production through from the first read-through to dress-rehearsal.

An increasing number of visual artists, reacting to the gap which divides them from the mainstream of ordinary life, have abandoned their ivory towers to work more directly with people.
This week Arena looks at aspects of community art and includes a film on the work of painter Keith Grant , ' artist-in-residence ' at the New Charing Cross Hospital.

What is great acting? Claire Bloom and Kenneth Tynan discuss three performances. Amongst them Peggy Ashcroft in an extract from BECKETT'S Happy Days and Judi Dench in SHAW'S Too True to be Good, plus a rare treat, filmed on Broadway - Irene Worth in her triumphant success in TENNESSEE WILLIAMS'S Sweet Bird of Youth.

A fortnightly look at the world of the visual arts, fashion, photography and design.
Tonight's Arena is about some of the latest developments in sculpture and features Robert Janz and Dante Leonelli , two artists concerned with incorporating a fourth dimension, the dimension of time, to their work.