
To mark David Bowie's comeback album and a new exhibition at the V&A, Alan Yentob looks back at his legendary 1975 documentary, Cracked Actor. The film follows Bowie during the Diamond Dogs tour of 1974. \n\nAlan Yentob says, 'I'd caught him at what was an intensely creative time, but it was also physically and emotionally gruelling. Our encounters tended to take place in hotel rooms in the early hours of the morning or in snatched conversations in the back of limousines. He was fragile and exhausted, but also prepared to open up and talk in a way he had never really done before.'\n\nCracked Actor has become one of the classic rock documentaries of all time, remaining an enduring influence on generations of Bowie fans.
Source: BBC 4
2021: Tom Stoppard: A Charmed Life
Tom Stoppard is perhaps the world’s leading, funniest and cleverest playwright. Ever since he hit the ground running in the 1960s with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dea ...
29-12-2025
BBC 4
2020: 1. Lenny Henry: Young, Gifted And Black
Alan Yentob follows one of our best loved performers as he releases his first autobiography charting his early years in show business. In this revealing and poignant film Sir Le ...
16-12-2025
BBC 4
Summer 2010 - Tom Jones - What Good Am I?
Alan Yentob examines the extraordinary story of one of Britain's most recognisable pop icons, Sir Tom Jones. In a frank and revealing interview, Sir Tom describes his rise to fame.
28-10-2025
BBC 4
Winter 2017/18: 4. Philip Pullman: Angels And Daemons
Romantic, fearless, fantastical; this edition delves into the thrilling world of Philip Pullman and explores the author's own dark materials. \n\nPullman has been named both one ...
21-10-2025
BBC 4
2020: Marina Abramovic: The Ugly Duckling
Marina Abramovic is the reigning queen of performance art. She invites Alan Yentob into her home, opens up her enormous personal archive and travels back to her birthplace, Belg ...
06-10-2025
BBC 4
2018: George Benjamin: What Do You Want To Do When You Grow Up?
He has been crowned with every laurel in contemporary classical music, composed operas which play on the world's most illustrious stages and been knighted for his services to mu ...
31-08-2025
BBC 4
Spring 2018: 2. Orhan Pamuk: A Strange Mind
Turkey's best-known writer, the Nobel Prize-winning Orhan Pamuk, glories in his city of Istanbul, which in his lifetime has grown from two to fifteen million people. Despite pol ...
12-07-2018
BBC 4
2022: Malorie Blackman: What If?
Alan Yentob follows one of Britain’s best-loved writers: Malorie Blackman, former Children’s Laureate and the first children’s writer to win the prestigious Pe ...
12-10-2023
BBC 4
Summer 2014 - Monty Python: And Now For Something Rather Similar
Alan Yentob meets the five surviving members of Monty Python - John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle - as they prepare to reunite on stage.
22-01-2020
BBC 4
2022: Miriam Margolyes: Up For Grabs
Miriam Margolyes is one of Britain’s best loved and most provocative actresses. Across her eclectic career, she has played scene-stealing turns in Blackadder, voiced some ...
25-04-2022
BBC 4
Vincent Van Gogh: Painted With Words
Drama-documentary presented by Alan Yentob, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role as Van Gogh. \n\nEvery word spoken by the actors in this film is sourced from the letters ...
15-10-2024
BBC 4
2024/25: The Academy Of Armando
Alan Yentob profiles the stellar career of one of the great satirists of our age, Armando Iannucci, whose impressive body of work includes The Day Today, The Thick of It, Veep, ...
12-03-2025
BBC 4