2nd House

The first programme in a new series of 2nd House examines The Who phenomenon. In 1964 a rock group made their first public appearance at a pub in Harrow. Ten years later the same band hold an undisputed position among rock giants.

An exhibition of painter Paul Klee's later works opened last week at the Bristol Art Gallery. Randy Newman talks to Charlie Gillett and sings from his album The Good Old Boys. In his New York home, author Isaac Bashevis Singer talks the Polish Jewish community he was brought up in.

A documentary celebrating different aspects of our national sport in music, verse and drama.

Willy Russell's hit musical at the Lyric Theatre charts the rise and fall of The Beatles. At the Royal Academy, the largest collection of J. M. W. Turner's work ever to be shown publicly opens today. To coincide with their current season at Sadler's Wells, the artistic directors of London's two leading modern dance companies were each invited to create an original work for television.

On his recent visit to London, Athol Fugard was interviewed by Melvyn Bragg and tonight's programme brings together extracts from South Africa's finest playwright's most important plays to give a portrait of this formidable man of the theatre.

A new selection of stories by the Brothers Grimm, translated and illustrated by Maurice Sendak, restores to these fairy tales their original strength and complexity. Interviewed in his New York studio, 40-year-old pop painter James Rosenquist talks about the current exhibition of his work at the Mayor Gallery in London. Poet Peter Redgrove and young author Penelope Shuttle talk about the ideas behind their book. At the Mermaid Theatre in London, Benny Green and Alan Strachan celebrates the spirit of Cole Porter.

A documentary entertainment in England's forgotten language dialect performed in the accent of those for whom Barth will always be Bath and Coventry will never be Cuventry.

This month, the Victoria and Albert Museum celebrates the great Vincent Van Gogh's years in England. 2nd House filmed Thorn Gunn, poet-hero of the British beat generation who now lives in San Francisco, reading from his latest collection in the Californian landscape which inspires his poetry.

In January 1885 John Lee, a young servant, was condemned to death in Exeter for the murder of his employer. For reasons that have remained mysterious to this day he could not be hanged. The only recorded failure in the history of the drop system made Lee, convicted murderer, a popular hero, known all over the country.

Melvyn Bragg talks to James Toback, the New York College lecturer and occasional sports-writer who has written the story and the script of Karel Reisz's new film The Gambler. This month, an exhibition of Swiss artist Henry Fuseli's work opens at the Tate Gallery. An adaptation of controversial R. D. Laing's book, Knots.

A personal documentary written and presented by Michael Frayn.

Trevor Griffiths's new play opened to rave notices at the Nottingham Play-house at the end of February. An exhibition devoted to the history and re-discovery of British photography opens at the Hayward Gallery. Tonight's film looks at a session unique to traditional Irish music.

2nd House explores in verse, drama, cartoon, documentary and song how our views of wedlock have shifted in recent times from the Victorian belief in a life-long union entailing absolute fidelity and in which sex was primarily for begetting children.

The first part of tonight's programme is devoted to artists and craftsmen who are brightening up our environment. Extracts from some of Julian Symons's award-winning crime novels are enacted.

Tonight's programme takes an affectionate look at radio comedy from the earliest days of the British Broadcasting Company right up to the present day.

Composer Gordon Crosse and Alan Garner have taken the Cheshire legend of Potter Thompson as the starting point for their children's opera. Edwin Mullins takes a look at the early years of Arthur Lasenby Liberty's famous store in Regent Street, London. Sonny Rollins, one of the great jazz saxophonists of all times, released his latest disc. As an experiment, 2nd House invited three dancers from the Ballet Rambert and three from the London Contemporary Dance Theatre to work together to see if they can create something different.

Exactly 30 years ago today, nuclear physicist Philip Morrison supervised the loading of the A-bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki. In conversation with Melvyn Bragg, he recalls for viewers how scientists like himself came to be involved in the manufacture of nuclear weapons and the campaign some of them have waged to limit the arms race.

An anthology for October, highlighting some of the month's events in music, theatre, visual arts, books and film.

A documentary entertainment spoken, sung, written and performed by former National Servicemen including Acker Bilk, Ronnie Corbett, Nicholas Harman , Michael Parkinson , novelist Gordon Williams and volunteers from the general public.

An anthology for November, highlighting some of the month's events in music, theatre, visual arts, books, and film.

Features some of the personalities and activities that are thriving in the city of Liverpool today, ten years after the birth of the ' Liverpool scene '.

A special edition featuring Norman Mailer's recently published biography of Marilyn Monroe.

In the spring of 1975 the new National Theatre opens on London's South Bank. Melvyn Bragg looks at the British Theatre, the people who go to it and those who don't.

An anthology for January highlighting some of the month's events in music, books, theatre, film and the visual arts.

The first TV appearance of a newly formed trio, S.O.S., which combines three of the finest British jazz saxophonists. Edwin Mullins reviews the current exhibition at the Tate Gallery. Brigid Brophy, founder of the Writers' Action Group (W.A.G.), discuss why their livelihood severely curtailed by the public library system, and their immediate plans to storm Parliament.

A short story by Chekhov, revolving around the confrontation of ideas between Anton, a landscape painter, and Lydia, a young aristocratic girl who devotes her life to good works, is the centrepiece for tonight's programme.

A disagreement with the Arts Council has brought to an end Frank Hauser's association with the Oxford Playhouse, and the winding up of the company he founded 17 years ago to put on new plays in Oxford - the Meadow Players. As a grand finale, many of the celebrated artists who have appeared with the company during its life gathered in Oxford to put on a special show as a surprise parting gift for Frank Hauser.

Jack Common's classic account of a northern working-class childhood - Kiddar's Luck - is soon to be republished. 2nd House looks at some original H. M. Bateman drawings from the current exhibition at the Leicester Gallery. The Garage is a new gallery in London, dedicated to showing the work of living artists. Peter Maxwell Davies is one of Britain's most highly regarded composers. Tonight they play three of his compositions.

All over the world writers and artists are in conflict with authoritarian rule. 2nd House presents the work of four individuals whose freedom of expression has, for differing reasons, been curtailed or suppressed.

Comedian Les Dawson, a W. C. Fields devotee, presents a collection of hitherto unpublished letters, speeches and sketches from Fields's intended autobiography, due to be published in April. Joshua Rifkin conducts his own orchestral arrangements of Scott Joplin's Pineapple Rag and The Ragtime Dance. Edwin Mullins looks at the way the impressionists and contemporary photographers documented the city of Paris of the 19th century. Grace, a story from Dubliners by James Joyce adapted by David Storey.

Charlie Gillett presents highlights from this year's Sixth International Festival of Country Music at Wembley. Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of the death of the poet Lord Byron. Ian Hamilton, the founder of one of the most controversial poetry magazines of the 60s, launches The New Review.

Melvin Bragg introduces a Cornish poet, an electronic painting, the music of Horslips and The Great Money Trick.

Tonight's 2nd House is devoted entirely to showing the work of independent filmmakers, and discussing their problems, their achievements and their future aims.