Catch up TV
How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin
Documentary which tells the extraordinary unknown story of how the Beatles helped to destroy the USSR.\n \nIn August 1962, director Leslie Woodhead made a two-minute film in Liverpool's Cavern Club with a raw and unrecorded group of rockers called the Beatles. He arranged their first live TV appearances on a local show in Manchester and watched as the Fab Four phenomenon swept the world. \n\nTwenty-five years later while making films in Russia, Woodhead became aware of how, even though they were never able to play in the Soviet Union, the Beatles' legend had soaked into the lives of a generation of kids. This film meets the Soviet Beatles generation and hears their stories about how the Fab Four changed their lives, including Putin's deputy premier Sergei Ivanov, who explains how the Beatles helped him learn English and showed him another life. \n\nThe Soviet authorities were alarmed by the seditious potential of rock and roll, with the Beatles a special target and denounced as 'bugs' in official papers. Their smuggled records were destroyed and their music was banned, but the myth blossomed as bootlegs and photos were covertly traded and even rented amongst fans. \n\nSoon there were thousands of rock bands across the USSR, trying to make music with crude home-made guitars. Speakers on lampposts installed to broadcast propaganda were grabbed by rock hopefuls, while reports that an electric pickup could be cannibalised from a telephone led to phone boxes being raided and disabled.\n\nMillions of young people fell in love with the Beatles and the culture of the Cold War enemy, and defected emotionally from the Soviet system. The Beatles prepared the cultural way for the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately helped to wash away the foundations of that system.
Source: BBC 4
Most recent episodes of Storyville
Storyville
Eternal You
A Storyville documentary exploring the digital afterlife business.\n\nWhat if a person's death did not mean the end of their life? What if their loved ones could still talk to t ...
29-10-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
Dogs Of War
A Storyville documentary that tells the untold story of a seemingly ordinary Englishman who spent more than 40 years as a mercenary, fighting other people’s wars for money ...
22-10-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
On The Morning You Wake (to The End Of The World)
On 13 January 2018, Hawaiians were suddenly confronted by an urgent nuclear threat. This was the text message they received from their country's emergency management agency: \n\ ...
08-10-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
War Game
A Storyville documentary that sweeps viewers into an elaborate simulation which dramatically escalates the threat that was posed in the USA by the Capitol attack on 6 January 20 ...
01-10-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
The Village That Fought Back: Five Broken Cameras
Oscar-nominated film compiled from the video diary of a Palestinian farmer who documents unrest in his West Bank village. Emad Burnat starts filming with his first camera follow ...
25-09-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
Undercover Oap: The Mole Agent
A recently widowed 83-year-old goes undercover in a Chilean nursing home in a warm-hearted and surprising look at age, isolation and loneliness. \n\nSergio is a Chilean spy - so ...
24-07-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
Attica: America’s Bloodiest Prison Uprising
A Storyville documentary about the violent five-day standoff between inmates and law enforcement which gripped America in 1971.
23-07-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
Inheriting The Castle
Justina, an indigenous Argentinian, has been rewarded by her former employer for her lifelong work as her maid with an enormous crumbling mansion deep in the Argentine Pampas. T ...
02-07-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
Bad Press
In 2018, out of 574 federally recognised tribes, the Muscogee Nation (the fourth largest Native American tribe) was one of only five to establish a free and independent press - ...
25-06-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
Citizen Ashe
Documentary that tells the little-known story of sports legend Arthur Ashe off the tennis court. Known to most on account of his stellar sports career – he became the firs ...
23-06-2024
BBC 4
Most popular episodes of Storyville
Storyville
Stranded! The Andes Plane Crash Survivors
In October 1972, a student rugby team boarded a small plane in Montevideo to fly across the Andes for a long weekend of playing rugby and partying in Chile. But they never reach ...
11-10-2022
BBC 4
Storyville
Dogs Of War
A Storyville documentary that tells the untold story of a seemingly ordinary Englishman who spent more than 40 years as a mercenary, fighting other people’s wars for money ...
22-10-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
The Eternal Memory
An extraordinary portrait of unconditional love and devotion, directed by Oscar-nominated documentary director Maite Alberdi.\n\nAugusto Góngora and Paulina Urrutia have ...
13-02-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
President
When Robert Mugabe was ousted by his own party, Zimbabwe’s new leaders promised a democratic presidential election – the first since the start of Mugabe’s rul ...
09-02-2022
BBC 4
Storyville
Revenge: Our Dad The Nazi Killer
Hundreds of Nazi war criminals fled to Australia after World War Two hoping to start over and avoid prosecution. Not all of them found the refuge they had sought; quite a few di ...
23-01-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
The Trials Of Oppenheimer
J Robert Oppenheimer was one of the most celebrated scientists of his generation. Shy, arrogant and brilliant, he is best known as the man that led the Manhattan Project to spec ...
11-03-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
Carlos Ghosn: The Last Flight
In December 2019, Carlos Ghosn, former CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, charged with financial crimes, stunned the world by fleeing Japan in a box supposedly containing a pri ...
10-10-2021
BBC 4
Storyville
Beneath The Surface
In 2014, following a tip-off, a group of journalists exposed a troubled history for indigenous Sámi women, men and children in Norway. It revealed generations of negligen ...
15-10-2022
BBC 4
Storyville
Benjamin, Joshua And The Crown Shyness
When high school ends and adulthood begins, Benjamin and Joshua Israel, two identical twins of Jewish origin, start feeling burdened. While friends and schoolmates are planning ...
12-09-2023
BBC 4
