Stalin - the Red God

Arena

31st May 2001 Season 1 Episode 538

Joseph Stalin is seen outside his native land as one of history's most deplorable tyrants, but throughout the former Soviet states a cult of Stalin still exists. This film documents Stalin's development from would-be provincial priest to ruthless autocrat, and shows how he exploited the repression of the Russian Orthodox Church, using visual propaganda, to reinvent himself as a quasi-religious idol.

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Season 1 · Episode 539

According to Beryl

A one-off film in which author Beryl Bainbridge chronicles the extraordinary relationship during the 18th century between Samuel Johnson and Hester Thrale, the wife of rich London brewer Henry Thrale, which forms the basis for her latest novel, According to Queeney. Johnson lived with the Thrales for most of the last 20 years of his life, during which time Hester nursed him through his bouts of melancholia and gout - until she ran off with her daughter Queeney's Italian singing teacher. Jim Carter and Susannah Harker read extracts from letters Johnson and Mrs Thrale wrote to each other. Beth Goddard and Bainbridge herself read from According to Queeney.

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