OLLI Videos

Sue begins her journey at the source of the Ganges in the highest mountains on earth. It's been a tough year for the comedian following the death of her father and her journey has a profound effect.

Episode Two

Halfway along her journey, Sue immerses herself in the complex life of the ancient city of Varanasi - a place seen as the spiritual centre of India by millions of Hindus that also contains some of the most polluted stretches of the river.

Episode Three

Sue learns how Patna has become a centre of education, visits the "miracle village" of Daveshpura, catches up with some old friends in Kolkata and visits some of the islands at the mouth of the river and beyond.

Kolkata

Sue Perkins immerses herself in the complex life of Kolkata. She sees first-hand how it has evolved from a place notorious for its fabled 'Black Hole' dungeon and the dreadful poverty of its street people to a place reinventing itself as a vibrant new megacity, with a booming property sector and a reputation for eccentricity, culture and tolerance.

In this intricate human habitat, Sue explores the lives of its people, from the 250,000 homeless street kids hustling for a living to the wealthy young entrepreneurs who race their Ferraris and Lamborghinis down the streets of the New Town.

She joins the rickshaw wallahs navigating the chaotic city streets and narrow lanes, thronged with people, and descends into Kolkata's Victorian sewers as part of an epic clean-up. She limbers up with the ladies of the Laughing Club and makes an offering to the goddess in the sacred Kalighat Temple.

No other city tells the remarkable story of India more clearly than the beautiful, crazy, colourful city of Kolkata. Through encounters with people from every strata of society, from the richest to the poorest, Sue paints a picture of contemporary India emerging from a brutal colonial past to take its place among the most powerful nations on earth.

The Mekong

Episode One

Sue's epic journey begins in Vietnam, on the vast Mekong Delta, where she joins Si Hei, the queen of the noodle. Starting at dawn, they head out to sell noodle soup at the Delta's largest floating market that's endured for centuries. Vietnam is the world's second largest exporter of rice, so Sue moves upstream to work with farmers in the paddy fields and finds out how their lives are changing with the prospect of capitalism.

Episode Two

Sue Perkins continues her epic journey up the Mekong, south east Asia's greatest river. In this second episode, Sue embarks on the most emotional leg of her journey along the Mekong. Having learned how people are struggling to recover from the legacy of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, animal lover Sue continues through Cambodia to witness how deforestation and wildlife crime are stripping the country of it last wild places.

Episode Three

In this third episode, Sue reaches Laos, one of the poorest and least developed of all the Mekong nations. It's a country shaped by both Buddhism and Communism and has hardly changed for centuries. Today, the beauty of its landscapes and people is bringing in foreign tourists - backpackers in search of unspoilt Asia.

Episode Four

In this fourth and final episode, Sue reaches her final destination - China, home to the source of the Mekong. Here, change is sweeping through faster than any other Mekong nation, as China's economic miracle transforms even the remotest regions.

Japan

Episode One

Sue Perkins starts her journey in Tokyo, Japan's glittering capital city and home to 36 million people. She trains with a female sumo wrestling team, meets a family who live with robots and attends a solo-wedding.

Episode Two

Kyoto, Japan's geishas; free diving with ama divers; a visit to Hiroshima; exploring how the Japanese are tackling the future in Tokyo.

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Music and Musicians Spring 2022

February 11

Under the Volcano

February 18

Summer of Soul

February 25

Never Too Late: The Doc Severinsen Story

March 4

Taylor Swift: Miss Americana

March 11

Leningrad: The Symphony That Outlasted the Russians

April 1

Wait For Your Laugh: Rosemarie

Pat Benatar Martina McBride

April 8

The Divine Miss M

Alison Krauss Vince Gill

April 15

Dolly Parton

Alison Krauss Robert Plant

Nellie McKay Project Song

April 22

Janet Baker in her own Words

April 29

Cliburn Competition

Saturday, August 21, 2021

Stephen Fry in America

The United States

Episode One: New World

Fry's journey begins in New England with lobstermen in Eastport, Maine. He attends a primary meeting hosted by Mitt Romney and visits the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where he rides a cog railway to the top of Mount Washington.

In Vermont he is invited to create his own Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavour. He hunts for deer in the Adirondack Mountains (without a gun), attends a tea party with Harvard University professor Peter Gomes, and meets witches in Salem, Massachusetts.

Fry tours a submarine at the Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut, visits stately homes in Newport, Rhode Island, and moves on to New York City, meeting cabbies, mobsters, and Sting.

Next is Atlantic City, where he apprentices as a croupier at the Trump Taj Mahal casino before crossing the Delaware to Maryland and Washington, D.C. to interview Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and a member of the Capitol Steps. He ends the first leg of his journey at the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Episode Two: Deep South

Fry tries to find out what makes the South so distinctive. He begins this leg of his journey with a visit to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. He then finds the Mason–Dixon line, tours a coal mine in West Virginia, and watches horse trading and bourbon brewing before getting a trim at a barber shop in Kentucky.

He then visits a body farm in Tennessee, rides in a hot-air balloon in the Great Smoky Mountains, experiences the Gullah culture in the South Carolina Low country, attends a Southern-style Thanksgiving Dinner, tolerates Miami, mingles with snowbirds, and attends a massive college football game in Alabama.

Episode Three: Mississippi

A 2000-mile journey up the Mississippi River begins in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, followed by a visit to Morgan Freeman's blues club in Mississippi. He hitches a canoe up the river to Arkansas, visits hoboes in St. Louis, gets to see his brainwave activity at the research department of the Maharishi University of Management in Iowa, and after a detour going into a burning building in Indiana and over to Ohio and Detroit, explores Chicago and its place as a center for blues and comedy. He finishes the journey with a sheep's milk cheese farm in Wisconsin and Hmong immigrants and ice fishing in Minnesota.

Episode Four: Mountains and Plains

National security becomes a recurring theme as Stephen visits Border patrol agents in Montana, a former missile silo in Kansas, and an INS patrol in El Paso. He also visits Glacier National Park, Ted Turner's Bison ranch, the Continental Divide, the German American community in North Dakota, Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument, the Lakota people, a major truck stop on Interstate 80, Aspen and Salvation Army work in Oklahoma.

Episode Five: True West

Stephen explores the ancient city of Santa Fe, sees the cutting edge of scientific research in Los Alamos, eats frybread with Navajos in Monument Valley, and hitches a ride with a B-17 Flying Fortress to the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group. He sees a wild west show in Tucson, takes a houseboat around Lake Powell, takes part in a team-building exercise in Las Vegas, and sees another legacy of the wild west at the Mustang Ranch before arriving at the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

Episode Six: Pacific

Stephen begins in San Francisco, exploring its Chinatown and meeting Apple executive Jonathan Ive. He takes a ride with the Mendocino County sheriff, meets students at Humboldt State University, explores the forests of Oregon with activists and Bigfoot believers, and reaches the end of the Contiguous United States at a cabaret in Seattle. In Alaska, Stephen encounters fishermen and Inupiat whalers. Finally he goes to Hawaii, where he swims with sharks, meets a real-life Magnum, P.I., attends an authentic luau and finishes his journey at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

Central America

Episode One: Mexico

Stephen Fry crosses Mexico from El Passo in a yellow US school bus, commonly getting its second, hardest career there. Vaqueros (the Original cowboys) and canyons impress him more then the Grand Canyon. In Chihuahua he enjoys the donkey festival and visits the once priceless silver mine at rundown Real Catorce.

A proud archaeologist shows him the Tutanchalon-like treasures in the Precolumbian capital Teotihuacan near Aztec, colonial and modern metropolis Mexico City. Stephen plays a butler cameo in a telenovela (soapserie) and attends a mass demonstration against the horrible murders in drug wars. Heading for the Pacific coast, he admires the colony of multi-generational monarch butterfly migrations and the brave, yet often studying cliff divers in Acapulco, once a fanciful elite resort.

Episode Two: Belize and Guatemala

Stephen crosses from Mexico to Belize, the former British Honduras, still anglophone and with a now tiny British garrison, where the major kindly helps repair the bus. Then to Guatemala, a green and mountainous country, where half of the population is Mayan, and suffered excessively in decades of civil war. Steven tastes their rituals and learns about the bloody originals, admires archaeological sites at Tikal and Atitlan while the onerous ball sports is revived by youth and traditions maintained, like 'fashionable' weaving in each tribal regions.

Episode Three: Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua

In the penultimate episode, Stephen journeys into tiny and little-visited El Salvador and tries his hand at surfing, before crossing into Honduras. He visits a banana plantation and learns about charitable projects in the capital to give the next generation of Hondurans more opportunities for the future.

Finally, Stephen crosses into Nicaragua where he visits a cigar factory, meets a gay activist and dances around the maypole with Creole-speaking slave decendant Nicaraguans.

Episode Four: Costa Rica to Panama

In the final episode, Stephen continues his journey into Costa Rica, billed as the 'Switzerland of Central America' for its stable democracy, enviable living standard and lack of a national military. Here, he takes advantage of Costa Rica's stunning scenery and adventurous attitude by trying white water rafting, tarpon fishing and climbing active volcanoes.

In Panama, Stephen has the unique opportunity to watch giant leatherback turtles come ashore to lay their eggs, and visits Panama City with its infamous canal before bidding farewell to the continent at the end of his epic journey.

Monday, June 14, 2021

Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie

June 2nd

The Script

Sjöman interviews Bergman on the idea and themes of Winter Light, covers the location scouting, and interviews Sven Nykvist on the lighting.

June 9th

Filming

Sjöman observes actors Gunnar Björnstrand and Ingrid Thulin on set and interviews Bergman on how the filming process went, shortly before it completed in January 1962.

June 16th

Post Production and the Premiere

Sjöman observes the editing process and interviews Bergman on the anticipated response to the film. Sjöman and Bergman review the critical response to the film.

June 23rd

Winter Light