'South Bank Show' to profile Spacey

ITV’s arts series The South Bank Show has announced its autumn run, which culminates with a show profiling American actor and Old Vic creative director Kevin Spacey.

The two time Oscar winner will end the series in December with presenter Melvyn Bragg profiling Spacey as he prepares the Old Vic for its Christmas pantomime Cinderella, written by Stephen Fry, along with a run of Pedro Almodovar’s All About My Mother and David Mamet’s Speed The Plow, in which Spacey will star.

The autumn SBS run begins on September 23 with American writer Joan Didion, following the week after with thriller writer Ken Follett.

On October 7, the show celebrates the publication forty years ago of The Mersey Sound, which made poetry 'stars' of Liverpudlians Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten in the late sixties. The following week sees comedy writers and performers John Bird and John Fortune look at their careers from the Cambridge Foolights and Peter Cook's Establishment Club, to Channel 4's Bremner, Bird & Fortune, and considers the appeal of political humour today.

December's South Bank Shows begin with singer Annie Lennox rehersing for a peace concert, and features exclusive footage of her working in Africa with AIDS victims. Dancer Darcey Bussell and singer Katherine Jenkins are the focus of a documentary about their already sold-out show, Viva La Diva, and staying with dance, the penultimate South Bank Show for this series looks at popular Tchaikivsky’s ballet The Nutcracker, and its appeal as a Christmas classic for children around the world.