Any Colour You Like: repeats of Pink Floyd specials on BBC Four tonite
Monday, June 2nd, 2008Rock docs on the Beeb
BBC4 are tonight showing a trio of documentaries on British rock relics Pink Floyd, after initial runs proved successful in the ratings department. First broadcast earlier this year to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the release of debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and shown again a couple of weeks ago, The Pink Floyd Story: Which One’s Pink? (BBC4, 9:30pm) traces the formative years of the band from their underground psychedelic roots to their laser-light display world-conquering tours.
The documentary features plenty of rare footage, with clips from the infamous Pompeii concert (which was released in British cinemas – when does that happen these days?) and interviews with the four surviving members – Roger Waters, Dave Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright. This is followed up by a Classic Albums doc (BBC4, 10:30pm), which takes a look at The Dark Side of the Moon, the bands most well-known and biggest selling record.
Much of the focus on the late Syd Barrett, the original frontman and chief songwriter of the band in its formative incarnation is reserved for the Omnibus documentary (BBC4, 11:20pm) shown later. The programme charts Barrett’s rise, how he transformed the band from a pop rock covers act into a powerful artistic force, and his eventual drug-fuelled decline, becoming a poster boy for rock casualties in the process.
After having played Keith Richards to perfection in Pirates of the Caribbean, Johnny Depp announced in an interview sometime last year that he’d be interested in playing Barrett in a film – this has sparked a heated online debate, with Petition Online playing host to two for and against petitions, which can be found here and here.
EDIT: we’re sorry to report that none of these programmes were shown last night; a cock-up on our office’s Freeview box was incorrectly displaying programmes from last week - we realised this when we saw that the same programmes were displayed on the EPG this morning. Technology eh?
