A Very British Renaissance - BBC2
the_lostprophet
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I just happened upon this by chance on the iplayer but it's a real gem of a documentary series - the third and final part is tonight. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03yzflc
I studied a Shakespeare module for my English degree and so knew some of the subjects discussed e.g. Hans Holbein's 'The Ambassadors' portrait but have learnt a lot as well - the range of subjects covered is very broad so that's inevitable I would have thought. For example I had never heard of Thomas Tallis' 'Spem in Alium' but listened to it on Youtube this morning and it is complex and beautiful.
At the moment I'm watching the second episode. Dr James Fox is a very engaging and at times humorous presenter - hadn't seen him present anything before this series. It's certainly worth catching this before it disappears from the iplayer.
I studied a Shakespeare module for my English degree and so knew some of the subjects discussed e.g. Hans Holbein's 'The Ambassadors' portrait but have learnt a lot as well - the range of subjects covered is very broad so that's inevitable I would have thought. For example I had never heard of Thomas Tallis' 'Spem in Alium' but listened to it on Youtube this morning and it is complex and beautiful.
At the moment I'm watching the second episode. Dr James Fox is a very engaging and at times humorous presenter - hadn't seen him present anything before this series. It's certainly worth catching this before it disappears from the iplayer.
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Comments
I would have much less walking about in places that are nothing to do with the topic - its OK to stand and talk to the camera, we can concentrate, you know..
Much less modern crowd footage - we know what a crowd looks like, thank you.
And I would only have music from the period.
(Exquisite portrait sketches)
I quite like his thesis that the Renaissance is not just about Italian architecture, music ,sculpture and painting, but also about ways of thinking etc in which 'Britain' could equally compete (as opposed to being the backward savages by comparison)
But I do agree with the poster above re the unnecessary stuff
Edit: just noticed it clashes with Have I GNFY, so may have to iplayer.
Yes well I'm afraid this kind of thing pops up in basically every BBC documentary that isn't on BBC4 - I just kind of zone it out.