Going Going

From its sell-out run at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre comes a film version of this unique and critically acclaimed production of Hamlet with BAFTA-nominee Maxine Peake in the title role. This ground-breaking stage production, directed by Sarah Frankcom, was the Royal Exchange's fastest-selling show in a decade.

An aged art connoisseur (Beaumont) and his young female neighbour (Coles), who has a job posing naked in a club, meet and exist in fantasy and reality. Although this raises certain much-discussed questions about the nature of representation, and about the construction of narrative and daydreams in films, 'Phoelix' tends to treat these as just pretty and pertinent issues, opting instead for a mannered concentration on detail.

Margaret Williams directs this 2001 production of adaptation of Benjamin Britten's television opera based on a short story by Henry James. Performers featured include Gerald Finley, Peter Savidge and Josephine Barstow. The conductor is Kent Nagano. As pertinent now as then, OWEN WINGRAVE was composed by Benjamin Britten at the height of the Vietnam War. The opera poses the question: Is pacifism an act of cowardice? Or rather a desire to escape from the spiral of war and create world peace? To what extent do we determine our own futures? Should we let past events inform the decisions we make? Britten’s characters grapple with timeless issues in this gripping psychodrama.

A witty, feature-length drama-documentary in which Marcel Duchamp, who once compared his own mind to that of a master criminal, is investigated by Sherlock Holmes. Holmes comes out of retirement, and with the assistance of Dr. Watson, proceeds to delve into the mystery of Duchamp’s major work, the once-notorious Large Glass (The Bride Stripped Bare by the Bachelors, even) 1915-23.

Diana Damrau’s reputation as the world’s leading coloratura soprano has been built on her extraordinary technical virtuosity, her sensitive musicianship and her acute psychological insight. In this DVD of Katie Mitchell’s sometimes radical production of Lucia di Lammermoor from London’s Royal Opera House, she is, as the Financial Times wrote, “brilliantly convincing”. The British award winning director Katie Mitchell – took a revisionist approach to the drama, updating the action to the mid-19th century and applying a feminist slant as she added new and unexpected elements. The Financial Times wrote: “Mitchell shows us on stage personal traumas that a self-respecting woman in the early 19th century was meant to keep to herself. It is a messy, bloody list — nocturnal sex trysts, a knife murder, a miscarriage, a suicide in the bath … In all this Damrau is brilliantly convincing. Her rebellious Lucia is a woman of modern attitudes stuck in a still feudal Victorian world.”

The diversity of Wayne McGregor's astonishing talent is demonstrated through Chroma, Infra and Limen, each created for The Royal Ballet, for whom he is resident choreographer. Intimate yet universal, light yet dark, frenetic yet lyrical, McGregor pursues his passion for exploring the inner workings of the human body and mind, his many-layered and beautiful dances providing visual, sensual and kinaesthetic stimulus for the viewer. Works: Chroma (Talbot; White III); Infra (Richter); Limen (Saariaho).

Documentary about the composer Elizabeth Maconchy, filmed during the rehearsal of a new composition

A documentary about the life and works of Margaret Tait.

Lucia’s brother Enrico is horrified to learn she has fallen in love with his sworn enemy Edgardo. He hastily arranges her marriage to his associate Arturo. Edgardo and Lucia privately exchange rings before he leaves to fight in France. Enrico tricks Lucia into believing that Edgardo has been unfaithful. Longing for death, she signs the contract with Arturo – moments before Edgardo returns. Lucia murders Arturo in their wedding bed. His death is followed first by Lucia’s, and then by Edgardo’s.

An engaging and enlightening documentary about Jeff Keen shown on Channel 4 in 1983. Features Keen performing in front of his film projections as well as talking about and showing his work in different media.

A community-based documentary following four local arts projects in the London Borough of Hackney.

Penned by composer Thomas Ades, this contemporary opera is based on the life of the Duchess of Argyll (played by Mary Plazas), who's fallen on hard times in old age. A notoriously oversexed money-grubber in her younger days, the down-and-out duchess faces eviction from the hotel she calls home. Heather Buck, Daniel Norman and Graeme Broadbent also star in this uninhibited production, with Ades conducting the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.

An open-air staging by Aldeburgh Music of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, on the beach that inspired the opera. A small seaside community struggles to accept a fisherman.