Arena (TV Series) - Overview

Overview

Arena was voted one of the 50 most influential programmes of all time in a poll of leading TV executives in Broadcast magazine.

Arena has presented many themed nights examining a single subject in various ways, including; an "Animals Night" (16 December 1989), "Food Night" (15 December 1990), "Cuba Night" (2 January 1999) "Bus Night" (10 December 2005) and the ambitious "Radio Night", simulcast on BBC2 and BBC Radio 4 on 18 December 1993.

Over the years, Arena has also covered Salvador Dalí, Mark Boyle, the Mona Lisa, the Chelsea Hotel in New York, Howard Hodgkin, Richard Hamilton, Anthony Caro, Marc Chaimowicz, the Cable Street Mural, John Byrne, John Hoyland, Robert Natkin, Harold Pinter, Orson Welles, Dire Straits, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Bob Marley, etc. In My Way (1978), a documentary film devoted to the song, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols sung his version.

In 1988, Arena itself was the subject of an edition titled "Ten Green Bottles" (a reference to its iconic title sequence, which depicts a floating green bottle with a neon sign inside).