The Holy Family Album is a television documentary written and narrated by Angela Carter. It was directed by Jo Ann Kaplan and produced by John Ellis at Large Door Productions, London, UK. It was broadcast on the UK's Channel 4 on 3 December 1991 as part of the Without Walls series, commissioned by Waldemar Januszczak.
The documentary treats representations of Christ in Western art as if they are photographs in God's photo album. According to John Ellis, the programme "caused considerable controversy", and was criticised in an editorial in The Times even before it was transmitted. The programme was featured in Channel 4's review programme Right to Reply and a complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Council was not upheld. It has not been retransmitted or published since Angela Carter's death in 1992.
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded entirely by its commercial activities, including advertising. It began its transmission in 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service in the United Kingdom. At the time, the only other channels were the licence-funded BBC1 and BBC2, and a single commercial broadcasting network, ITV.
Sir Michael Edward Palin is an English actor, comedian, writer, and television presenter. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. He received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2013 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2019.
BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927. The service provides national radio stations covering the majority of musical genres, as well as local radio stations covering local news, affairs and interests. It also oversees online audio content.
ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire on weekdays only, as ABC Weekend Television was its weekend counterpart. Granada's parent company Granada plc later bought several other regional ITV stations and, in 2004, merged with Carlton Communications to form ITV plc.
Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based media production and broadcast journalism company. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, New York, Paris, Sydney and Washington, D.C.
BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 1932, although the start of its regular service of television broadcasts is dated to 2 November 1936.
Angela Olive Pearce, who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works. She is mainly known for her book The Bloody Chamber (1979). In 1984, her short story "The Company of Wolves" was adapted into a film of the same name. In 2008, The Times ranked Carter tenth in their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". In 2012, Nights at the Circus was selected as the best ever winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
Janet Ellis, is an English television presenter, actress and writer, who is best known for presenting the children's television programmes Blue Peter and Jigsaw between 1979 and 1987. She has published two novels, The Butcher's Hook (2016) and How It Was (2019). She is the mother of three children: singer/songwriter Sophie Ellis-Bextor, musician and former child actor Jackson Ellis-Leach and art historian Martha Ellis-Leach.
Angela May Rippon is an English broadcaster, former newsreader, writer and journalist.
World in Action was a British investigative current affairs programme made by Granada Television for ITV from 7 January 1963 until 7 December 1998. Its campaigning journalism frequently had a major impact on events of the day. Its production teams often took audacious risks, and the programme gained a solid reputation for its often-unorthodox approach. The series was sold around the world and won numerous awards. In its heyday, World in Action drew audiences of up to 23 million in Britain alone, equivalent to almost half the population.
Michelle Antoinette Wallen, known professionally as Mica Paris, is an English singer, presenter, and actress. Her debut album, So Good, was released in 1988, spawning the singles "My One Temptation" and "Where Is the Love". She has since gone on to release seven further albums: Contribution (1990), Whisper a Prayer (1993), Black Angel (1998), If You Could Love Me (2005), Soul Classics (2005), Born Again (2009), and Gospel (2020). In 2020, Paris played Ellie Nixon on the BBC soap opera EastEnders.
Reginald Yates is a British television presenter, actor, writer and director with a career spanning three decades on screen as an actor, television presenter and radio DJ. Yates played Leo Jones in Doctor Who and has worked at the BBC in radio and television–presenting various shows for BBC Radio 1 for a decade as well as hosting the BBC One singing show The Voice UK, hosting the first two series with Holly Willoughby.
Adrian Anthony Lester is a British actor. He is the recipient of a Laurence Olivier Award, an Evening Standard Theatre Award and a Critics' Circle Theatre Award for his work on the London stage, and has also been nominated for a Tony Award.
Sky Arts is a British free-to-air television channel offering 24 hours a day of programmes dedicated to highbrow arts, including theatrical performances, films, documentaries and music. The channel is available in the United Kingdom through Freeview, Freesat, BT TV, Sky, Virgin Media, and TalkTalk TV and in the Republic of Ireland via Sky Ireland, Virgin Media Ireland, Vodafone Ireland and Eir, included in most basic subscription packs, but started life as a premium service requiring an additional payment on top of the monthly Sky subscription. The channel launched on Freeview and Freesat as a free-to-air service in September 2020.
Jane Bonham Carter, Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury is a British Liberal Democrat politician, and member of the House of Lords.
Anagrams of Desire is an academic textbook about Angela Carter's media writings. Written by Charlotte Crofts and published by Manchester University Press in 2003, the full title is Anagrams of Desire: Angela Carter's Writing for Radio, Film and Television.
Martin Richard Durkin is an English television producer and director who has been commissioned by Britain's Channel 4. He is best known for directing The Great Global Warming Swindle (2007), which promotes climate change denial, and Brexit: The Movie (2016), which advocates for the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.
John Ellis is a British former TV producer and professor of media arts at Royal Holloway, University of London. Ellis studied English at the University of Cambridge 1970-3 and at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at University of Birmingham 1973-6. From 1978 to 1982 he taught Film Studies at University of Kent at Canterbury.
Channel 5 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Paramount Global's UK and Australia division. It was launched in 30 March 1997 to provide a fifth national terrestrial channel in the United Kingdom.
Robert Michael Rinder, sometimes known as Judge Rinder, is a British criminal barrister and television personality. In 2014, while still a practising barrister, he began hosting the reality courtroom series Judge Rinder. In 2019, he also began hosting the Channel 4 series The Rob Rinder Verdict.