Art critic Alastair Sooke tracks down the ten most expensive paintings to sell at auction, and investigates the stories behind the astronomic prices art can reach. Show more

Jonathan Meades provides a tour of Essex, a county he sees as the home of picturesque villages, pre-war modernism and 19th-century social experiments. Show more

Griff rediscovers a once well-trodden route, picking up the medieval pilgrim's staff to retrace the steps that thousands of worshippers made from Holywell to St Davids. Show more

Michael Palin explores the extraordinary life and work of the popular and controversial American artist Andrew Wyeth, meeting the people who inspired his paintings. Show more

Celebrating the age of armour, Tobias Capwell tells how Henry VIII fused German technology with Renaissance artistry to become the image of the perfect knight. Show more

Dan Cruickshank visits Britain's finest country houses, museums and factories as he uncovers the 18th- and 19th-century fascination with silver. Show more

A look at how blacksmiths created items that both served and embellished society, from the earliest hinges to baroque gates and mass-produced street furniture. Show more

Stephen Smith explores the objects of Parisian Art Nouveau and learns how some of the 19th century's most glamorous, controversial figures inspired an extraordinary movement. Show more

Charles Hazlewood explores the four great American minimalist composers who rebooted classical music in the 20th century. He begins with La Monte Young and Terry Riley. Show more

Charles Hazlewood meets Philip Glass and Steve Reich, who added new orchestral dimensions to compositions based on repetition, transcendence and new technology. Show more

Nicholas Parsons explores his life-long enthusiasm for clocks when he goes in search of the most valuable and famous watch in the world - the so-called Marie Antoinette. Show more

Celebrating groundbreaking 1960s playwright Joe Orton. Fifty years since his murder at the hands of his lover, the film charts Joe's brief meteoric rise and tragic demise. Show more

Accompanied by a herd of cows, Griff Rhys Jones retraces the 250-mile droving route from the Isle of Skye to Falkirk market used in the 19th century. Show more

Documentary revealing the autobiographical slant in the Moomins series, tracing author Tove Jansson's story from bohemian artist in war-torn Helsinki to recluse on a remote island. Show more

Focusing on the influence of Le Corbusier's post-war work, Jonathan Meades reclaims the reputation of once-maligned buildings that he argues stood for optimism and grandeur. Show more

Two-part documentary in which Jonathan Meades makes the case for 20th-century concrete Brutalist architecture in an homage to a style that he sees a brave, bold and bloody-minded. Show more

Examining the novel from three unique perspectives. This episode shows the way that women writers, women readers and women's lives have been central to the novel. Show more

The final episode of the series examines how the British Empire was celebrated in the novels of some writers and taken apart and upended by others. Show more

Drama about 19th-century artists. Ruskin threatens to end his support unless Rossetti and Lizzie focus on art. Lizzie responds swiftly, but Rossetti struggles and starts an affair. Show more