Great Entertainers' Lives

Synopsis

Well-known personalities pick their favourite entertainers for BBC Radio 4's Great LivesOne of the BBC's most acclaimed programmes, Great Lives has been a regular Radio 4 fixture for 20 years, presented by Joan Bakewell, Humphrey Carpenter, Francine Stock and Matthew Parris. Every week, a famous name is invited into the studio to nominate a figure from the past who has inspired them, and discuss their subject with the presenter and a guest expert.Included in this special collection, marking the programme's 20th anniversary, are the very best episodes featuring the lives of entertainers - artists, comedians, clowns, magicians, sporting heroes and stars of stage and screen. Among them, Julian Clary champions Noël Coward, Anthony Horowitz advocates Alfred Hitchcock, Penelope Keith puts forward Morecambe and Wise and David Bailey plumps for Pablo Picasso. Here, the lives of the celebrity guests are as intriguing as those of the people they pick: as is also the case with Alan Davies on Richard Beckinsale, Mica Paris on Josephine Baker, Ken Dodd on Stan Laurel, Mark Gatiss on Peter Cushing and many, many others.From Simon Callow on Orson Welles, to Fiona Shaw on Eleonora Duse, these engaging episodes put some of the world's best-known entertainers under the spotlight, examining their achievements and probing their personalities to find out what made them so inspiring, influential and extraordinary.List of episode and date of first broadcast on BBC Radio 4:Umm Kulthum 22.11.02Tommy Cooper 14.11.03Charles M Schulz 15.4.05Mae West 7.10.05Morecambe & Wise 4.4.06Noël Coward 18.4.06Johnny Weissmuller 9.5.06Tamara Karsavina 23.5.06Max Miller 15.8.06Joan Littlewood 5.1.07Richard Beckinsale 9.1.07Lilian Baylis 7.8.07Thora Hird 11.12.07Groucho Marx 15.1.08Peter Cushing 1.4.08Joyce Grenfell 20.5.08Richard Pryor 12.8.08Harry Houdini 22.9.09Gerald Durrell 27.9.11Stan Laurel 4.9.12Pablo Picasso 19.01.10John Ford 08.05.12Karel Reisz 11.09.12Dave Allen 14.01.14Lucille Ball 30.09.14Alfred Hitchcock 05.04.16Joseph Grimwaldi 31.05.16Gracie Fields 02.08.16Orson Welles 08.05.18Josephine Baker 15.05.18Eleonora Duse 10.09.19Copyright © 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2021 BBC Studios Distribution LtdPresented by Humphrey Carpenter and Matthew ParrisProduced by John Byrne, Christine Hall, Beatrice Fenton, Perminder Khatkar, Miles Warde, Toby Field, Mary Ward-Lowery, Lucy Lunt, Jolyon Jenkins, Sarah Langan, Tim Dee, Maggie Ayre, Peter Everett, Mark Smalley, Camellia Sinclair, Beth O'Dea