Smörgåsbord - Disc 28

The Lost Prince

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Prince

Riot at the Rite
from IMDB: "In the spring of 1913, Parisian businessman Gabriel Astruc opens a new theater on the Champs Elysées. The first performance is the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring', danced by the Ballet Russes. The rehearsal process is extremely fraught: the orchestra dislike Stravinsky's harsh, atonal music; the dancers dislike the 'ugly' choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky. The volatile, bisexual Nijinsky is in a strained relationship with the much older Sergei Diaghilev, the Ballet Russes' charismatic but manipulative impresario. Public expectation is extremely high after Nijinsky's success in 'L'apres-midi d'un faune'. Finally, 'The Rite of Spring' premieres to a gossip-loving, febrile, fashion-conscious Parisian audience sharply divided as to its merits."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473080/

Freefall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freefall_%28TV_programme%29

Accidental Farmer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Farmer

Toast
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toast_%28film%29

Prince John: The Windsors' Tragic Secret
documentary to go with The Lost Prince
"Had he lived beyond the tender age of 13, the sixth and youngest child of King George V and Queen Mary would have been the present Queen’s uncle. As hitherto understood on the basis of scraps of information about what used to be a very private family, John’s was a short life characterised by neglect and being ruthlessly locked away from public view on account of his severe epilepsy and a learning difficulty that may have been related to autism. His elder brother Edward once described him as "more of an animal than anything else". However, as befits a programme made by Blakeway Productions, whose reputation for factual programming is top-notch, this film depicts a story that was indeed tragic – but more complex than we might otherwise have believed. It uses the testimony of individuals with personal knowledge of the fate of the young prince – including nonagenarian Elsie Hollingsworth, whose father was John’s coachman – plus letters and photographs never seen before on television. This might not add up to a mass of new material, and it certainly shows a family teetering near the border of dysfunctionality, but it enables us to glimpse more sympathetically the struggle which the ultra-correct George and his emotionally repressed wife actually faced."