Grayson Perry: Rites of Passage

In this first episode, Grayson confronts death. In modern, increasingly secular Britain, are we in danger of forgetting how to mark and commemorate the deaths of the people we love? In search of an alternative, he travels to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi to meet the Toraja people, whose ideas about death are very different.

Grayson Perry continues his exploration of the importance of ritual in our lives. Grayson visits Japan, where he attends a spectacular Shinto wedding. He's awe-struck by the ceremony's beauty, precision and attention to detail. And in Japan he finds a modern, high-tech society that nevertheless keeps its reverence for its ritual traditions: a combination that he believes we can learn from. Back in the UK, Grayson meets Ben and Sarika, a couple from very different backgrounds who are planning two weddings. Sarika belongs to the Hare Krishna faith, so her side of the family are staging a traditional religious ceremony. But the couple are also planning a civil ceremony the following day. Ben's from a non-religious background, and they're struggling to devise an occasion that expresses his cultural heritage. So Grayson helps them to come up with a secular ceremony with some of the magic and sense of occasion of the religious one.

Grayson Perry continues his exploration of the importance of ritual in our lives. Bringing a child into the world is surely one of the most consequential things we can do, but how should we celebrate this life-changing moment? Grayson Perry begins his exploration of rituals for birth on the Indonesian island of Bali, where, in local tradition, a new-born child is seen as not fully part of our human world until it is 105 days old. Until that time, it's considered the height of misfortune if it should ever touch the ground. So, for its every waking moment it is constantly held by its parents and their family and friends. It's the ultimate expression of the adage that it takes a village to raise a child. When the baby reaches its 105th day, the family stage an elaborate ceremony where the child is allowed to touch the earth for the first time. Grayson experiences this beautiful ritual, and believes that we can all learn something from it.

In this closing episode, the rite of passage Grayson Perry explores is one with meaning and importance we often struggle to comprehend in modern Britain: coming of age. Grayson travels to the most remote place he's ever visited - deep into the Amazonian rainforest in western Brazil - to spend time with the Tikuna people, the region's largest indigenous group. He witnesses a coming of age ritual for teenage girls. Having been kept in seclusion from the rest of the community, and given instruction by the elder women of the village, Tikuna girls undergo an elaborate ceremony to mark their becoming an adult. It's a sometimes shocking event which challenges many of our ideas about how best to help young people make the difficult transition from child to adult. Back in the UK, Grayson meets a group of teenage girls from the Lewisham Young Women's Hub in south London.