The BEST episodes directed by John Bridcut
#1 - Elizabeth at 90 - A Family Tribute
BBC Documentaries - Season 2016 - Episode 114
A unique celebration of the Queen's ninety years as she reaches her landmark birthday in April. Film-maker John Bridcut has been granted special access to the complete collection of Her Majesty's personal cine films, shot by the Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen herself, as well as by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Much of it has never been seen publicly before. Various members of the Royal Family are filmed watching this private footage and contributing their own personal insights and their memories of the woman they know both as a member of their own close family and as queen. Among those taking part are the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, Prince Harry, the Princess Royal, the Duke of Kent and his sister Princess Alexandra, who has never before given an interview.
#2 - Elgar: The Man Behind the Mask
BBC Documentaries - Season 2010 - Episode 129
The composer of Land of Hope and Glory is often regarded as the quintessential English gentleman, but Edward Elgar's image of hearty nobility was deliberately contrived. In reality, he was the son of a shopkeeper, who was awkward, nervous, self-pitying and often rude, while his marriage to his devoted wife Alice was complicated by romantic entanglements which fired his creative energy. In this revelatory portrait of a musical genius, John Bridcut explores the secret conflicts in Elgar's nature which produced some of Britain's greatest music.
#3 - The Prince and the Composer: A Film About Hubert Parry by HRH The Prince of Wales
BBC Documentaries - Season 2011 - Episode 126
Sir Hubert Parry is simultaneously one of Britain's best-known and least-known composers. Jerusalem is almost a national song, regularly performed at rugby grounds, schools, Women's Institute meetings and the Last Night of the Proms, while Dear Lord and Father of Mankind is one of Britain's best-loved hymns. Everyone knows the tunes, yet hardly anyone knows much about the man who wrote them. In this film, HRH The Prince of Wales, a long-standing enthusiast of Parry's work, sets out to discover more about the complex character behind it, with the help of members of Parry's family, scholars and performers. This feature-length documentary by the award-winning director John Bridcut offers fresh insight into the life and work of Hubert Parry through the unique perspective of HRH The Prince of Wales.
#4 - Rostropovich: The Genius of the Cello
BBC Documentaries - Season 2011 - Episode 176
No-one has done more for the cello than Mstislav Rostropovich, or Slava as he was widely known. As well as being arguably the greatest cellist of the twentieth century, he expanded and enriched the cello repertoire by the sheer force of his artistry and his personality and composers lined up to write works for him. In this film by John Bridcut, friends, family and former pupils explore the unique talents of this great Russian artist, and listen to and watch him making music. Contributors include his widow Galina Vishnevskaya and their daughters Olga and Elena; the eminent conductors Seiji Ozawa and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky; and cellists who attended his famous classes in Moscow, including Natalya Gutman, Mischa Maisky, Moray Welsh, Elizabeth Wilson and Karine Georgian. The film traces the development of Rostropovich's international career amid the political tensions of the final years of the Soviet Union.
#5 - Delius: Composer, Lover, Enigma
BBC Documentaries - Season 2012 - Episode 110
The composer Frederick Delius is often pictured as the blind, paralysed and caustic old man he eventually became, but in his youth he was tall, handsome, charming and energetic - not Frederick at all for most of his life, but Fritz. He was a contemporary of Elgar and Mahler, yet forged his own musical language, with which he always tried to capture the pleasure of the moment. Using evidence from his friend, the Australian composer Percy Grainger, who reported that Delius 'practised immorality with puritanical stubbornness', this film by John Bridcut explores the multiple contradictions of his colourful life. Delius has long been renowned for his depiction of the natural environment, with pieces such as On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, yet his music is usually steeped in the sensuality and eroticism that he himself experienced. The documentary features specially-filmed performances by the widely-acclaimed Danish interpreters of Delius, the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bo Holten, as well as the chamber choir, Schola Cantorum of Oxford.
#6 - The Passions of Vaughan Williams
BBC Documentaries - Season 2008 - Episode 76
Fifty years after his death, this musical and psychological portrait of Ralph Vaughan Williams explores the passions that drove a giant of 20th-century English music. It explores the enormous musical range of an energetic, red-blooded composer whose output extends well beyond the delicate pastoralism of his perhaps most famous piece, The Lark Ascending. The film tells the story of his long marriage to his increasingly disabled wife Adeline and his long affair with the woman who eventually became his second wife, Ursula. The effect of these complicated relationships on his music is demonstrated in performances of orchestral and choral works, specially filmed at Cadogan Hall, London by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox and by the singers of Schola Cantorum of Oxford. Among the contributors is the late Ursula Vaughan Williams, who was interviewed shortly before she died at the age of 96.
#7 - Prince, Son and Heir: Charles at 70
BBC Documentaries - Season 2018 - Episode 266
A special documentary to mark the seventieth birthday of HRH the Prince of Wales. For this observational documentary, film-maker John Bridcut has had exclusive access to the prince over the past 12 months, both at work and behind the scenes, at home and abroad. He speaks to those who know him best, including HRH the Duchess of Cornwall and the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex. His sons discuss their upbringing and their feelings about the prince's working life. As the prince reaches his seventith birthday, he has been involved in public affairs for 50 years, championing environmental and social issues long before they reached the mainstream, from plastic waste and global warming to lack of opportunity for young people. The documentary charts the prince's working life at a time when he is taking on an increasing amount of duties in support of the Queen. He is seen on working visits to County Durham, Cornwall and the Brecon Beacons, and at home at Highgrove in Gloucestershire and Birkhall in Aberdeenshire. The film features behind-the-scenes footage of the Prince with the Queen in Buckingham Palace at the time of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in April, when the prince was named as the next head of the Commonwealth. Also included is the stunning ceremonial welcome given to the prince in the Pacific island republic of Vanuatu, when he was invested as a high chief, and his visit to three Caribbean countries struggling to recover after hurricanes Irma and Maria a year ago. What emerges is a revealing and intimate portrait of the longest-serving heir to the throne, who still feels he has a lot more to do.
#8 - Privatising Poland
Dispatches - Season 1989 - Episode 38
While political turmoil was continuing in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, the Poles (who began it all) were working on the next step – dismantling their state-controlled economy. A team of British experts arrived to kick-start the process.