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The Best Episodes of Monitor

Every episode of Monitor ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Monitor!

Binge this in 3h 2m•Peaking at 8.4/10

Monitor was a BBC arts programme that was launched on 2 February 1958 and ran until 1965. Huw Wheldon was the first editor from 1958 to 1965. He was also the principal interviewer and anchor. Wheldon

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    Monitor Season 5 Episode 8 - The Lonely Shore
    8.4/10(10 votes)

    #1 - The Lonely Shore

    S5:E8

    The Lonely Shore A fantasy. No one is left alive in England. All that remain are the fragments of our civilisation.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. Monitor Season 7 Episode 20 - Alfred Hitchcock
    8.2/10(18 votes)

    #2 - Alfred Hitchcock

    S7:E20

    A fortnightly magazine of the arts. Introduced by Huw Wheldon. Tonight's programme includes: Alfred Hitchcock The Dotty World of James Lloyd James Lloyd taught himself to paint. His pictures of the animals and the countryside he knew as a child are done in the French pointilliste style, entirely in little dots.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. Monitor Season 4 Episode 15 - The Class
    7.7/10(17 votes)

    #3 - The Class

    S4:E15

    The teacher is Harold Lang. The students are from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. Monitor Season 6 Episode 5 - Elgar: Portrait of a Composer
    7.7/10(304 votes)

    #4 - Elgar: Portrait of a Composer

    S6:E5

    For its 100th programme, a film biography written and directed by Ken Russell. Commentary by Huw Wheldon. Behind the public image of pomp and circumstance lies the extraordinary story of the piano-tuner's son from Worcester who, unknown and unsung until he was past forty, became the authentic voice of Edwardian England — "He has reached the hearts of the people" — yet remained through all his public triumphs and private pains an enigmatic, powerful, and mysterious figure.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. Monitor Season 8 Episode 3 - Larkin and Betjeman: Down Cemetery Road
    7.7/10(13 votes)

    #5 - Larkin and Betjeman: Down Cemetery Road

    S8:E3

    With Jonathan Miller including: Philip Larkin, who talks to John Betjeman about himself and his poetry and the city of Hull where he lives. "From a purely practical point of view it's nice being remote, because people on the whole don't drop in on you". and Philip Johnson, New York architect filmed in and around New York. "If you don't have an art collection you don't easily come to me for a house".

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. Monitor Season 5 Episode 13 - Pop Goes the Easel
    7.6/10(56 votes)

    #6 - Pop Goes the Easel

    S5:E13

    A fortnightly magazine of the arts. A group of four young artists, who between them have won critical acclaim, exhibition prizes, and Arts Council awards, are among those who have turned for subject-matter to the world of pop singers, pin-ups, space-men, wrestling, and the Twist. Monitor cameras spent an ordinary Saturday with them, from dawn to midnight. The artists and their pictures: Peter Blake, Siriol, she-devil of naked madness Derek Boshier, I wonder what my Heroes think of the Space-race Pauline Boty, Goodbye, cruel world Peter Phillips, For Men Only starring MM and BB Introduced and edited by Huw Wheldon.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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    7. Trending NowTRENDING NOW

    The 20 WORST Episodes of Monitor

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  7. Monitor Season 8 Episode 15 - The Debussy Film
    7.6/10(404 votes)

    #7 - The Debussy Film

    S8:E15

    Wives, mistresses, and the sinister Pierre Louys, artist, photographer, pornographer, make up the strange circle surrounding the life and music of the French composer. A new feature produced and directed by Ken Russell, author of the prize-winning Monitor film on Elgar.

    Director:Ken Russell
    Writers:Ken Russell, Melvyn Bragg

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  8. Monitor Season 8 Episode 18 - Always on Sunday
    7.5/10(260 votes)

    #8 - Always on Sunday

    S8:E18

    A new film produced and directed by Ken Russell about Henri 'Douanier' Rousseau artist-painter. The excise clerk who became the great primitive painter-his friendship with Alfred Jarry, the two-gun midget from Laval; his struggles, imprisonment for fraud, tragic love affair, and mysterious death. With the Yorkshire primitive painter James Lloyd in the role of Rousseau.

    Director:Ken Russell
    Writers:Ken Russell, Melvyn Bragg

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  9. Monitor Season 4 Episode 2 - Musician in Montmartre
    7.4/10(12 votes)

    #9 - Musician in Montmartre

    S4:E2

    Darius Milhaud the most prolific composer of today, filmed at his home in Paris.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. Monitor Season 7 Episode 18 - Bela Bartok
    7.4/10(20 votes)

    #10 - Bela Bartok

    S7:E18

    A fortnightly magazine of the arts. An evocation of the music and the times of the great Hungarian composer. "When I discovered Hungarian folk music, I realised that only from the totally old could the totally new be born." "As always I await the end of my exile." A film devised and directed by Ken Russell

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. Monitor Season 2 Episode 12 - A Poet In London
    7.3/10(13 votes)

    #11 - A Poet In London

    S2:E12

    John Betjeman, A poet in London.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. Monitor Season 4 Episode 21 - Episode 21
    7.3/10(11 votes)

    #12 - Episode 21

    S4:E21

    A fortnightly magazine of the arts. Introduced and edited by Huw Wheldon.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. Monitor Season 5 Episode 6 - Big Soft Nellie
    7.2/10(7 votes)

    #13 - Big Soft Nellie

    S5:E6

    With Henry Livings the author and scenes from the production of his new play now running at the Theatre Royal, Stratford.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. Monitor Season 3 Episode 7 - Episode 7
    7.1/10(14 votes)

    #14 - Episode 7

    S3:E7

    A fortnightly magazine of the arts. Introduced and edited by Huw Wheldon.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. Monitor Season 2 Episode 19 - Fritz Kortner/Spain to Streatham: The Guitar Craze
    7.0/10(15 votes)

    #15 - Fritz Kortner/Spain to Streatham: The Guitar Craze

    S2:E19

    Fritz Kortner, Leading German actor and stage director at work in the Residenztheater, Munich. Interviewed by Robert Robinson. Spain to Streatham: The Guitar Craze. A tour of how Britons are enthusiastically taking up the guitar in all sorts of ways.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. Monitor Season 5 Episode 4 - Style in the Theatre and Portrait of an Experience
    6.9/10(31 votes)

    #16 - Style in the Theatre and Portrait of an Experience

    S5:E4

    Style in the Theatre and Portrait of an Experience Michel Saint-Denis now directing rehearsals of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard with the Royal Shakespeare Company talking with Peter Newington. Poems, prose, and photographs from Flanders and The Somme

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. Monitor Season 4 Episode 8 - A Book of Hours
    6.6/10(14 votes)

    #17 - A Book of Hours

    S4:E8

    Book of Hours The seasonal calendar of the Duc de Berry. Zadkine at the Tate The famous Russian sculptor interviewed by Bernard Williams on the occasion of his retrospective exhibition opening at the Tate Gallery on January 5.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. Monitor Season 3 Episode 2 - Sean O'Casey
    5.2/10(15 votes)

    #18 - Sean O'Casey

    S3:E2

    A filmed profile with an extract from the current production of his play 'Cock-a-Doodle Dandy'.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. Monitor Season 1 Episode 1 - Kingsley Amis
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #19 - Kingsley Amis

    S1:E1

    Kingsley Amis interviewed about his new novel "I Like it Here" Peter Brook on "Quarter Ear Music" - illustrated in the studio by a scene from the Stratford Memorial Theatre production of "The Tempest", and by demonstrations of music concrete filmed in the Club d'Essai in Paris. Circus John Schlesinger takes a film camera to Harringay Joseph Cooper at the piano A view of Epstein's sculpture and a report on Tennessee Williams's play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof".

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. Monitor Season 1 Episode 2 - Sam Wanamaker
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #20 - Sam Wanamaker

    S1:E2

    Sam Wanamaker A report by Alan Brien on the Liverpool Theatre experiment Sir Hugh Casson on Architecture at Sea The problems involved in designing the architecture and interior decoration of an ocean-going liner Busking as a Business A sidelight Angry Young Men - Cult or Myth? Milton Shulman asks Kenneth Tynan, John Wain, Stuart Holroyd, Colin Wilson, Bill Hopkins

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. Monitor Season 1 Episode 3 - Paris: The Left Bank
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #21 - Paris: The Left Bank

    S1:E3

    Paris: The Left Bank A study of writers, sculptors, painters -both British and American-who live and work on the Left Bank London: The West End London Street Entertainers considered from an American point of view. Candlelight on Canvas Michael Ayrton looks at the work of a painter who has had a strong influence upon his own work, Georges de la Tour, the master of candlelight.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. Monitor Season 1 Episode 4 - Belgrade Theatre in Coventry
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #22 - Belgrade Theatre in Coventry

    S1:E4

    Belgrade Theatre in Coventry Monitor reports from the newly regenerated Coventry city centre and visits the Belgrade Theatre, the first civic theatre to be built in Britain since the Second World War. The Italian Opera Season Behind the scenes at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. John Bratby at work on murals for the film "The Horse's Mouth" at Shepperton Film Studios.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. Monitor Season 1 Episode 5 - Episode 5
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #23 - Episode 5

    S1:E5

    Theatre-Films-Books Painting-Sculpture Music-Architecture Presenting people, events, and controversies on film, and in the studio every fortnight. Introduced and edited by Huw Wheldon.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. Monitor Season 1 Episode 6 - Episode 6
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #24 - Episode 6

    S1:E6

    Theatre - Films - Books Painting-Sculpture Music-Architecture Presenting people, events, and controversies on film, and in the studio every fortnight. Introduced and edited by Huw Wheldon.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. Monitor Season 1 Episode 7 - Episode 7
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #25 - Episode 7

    S1:E7

    Theatre-Films Books-Painting-Sculpture Music-Architecture Presenting people, events, and controversies on film, and in the studio every fortnight. Introduced and edited by Huw Wheldon.

    Director:John Schlesinger
    Writer:Unknown

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Best Episodes Summary

"The Lonely Shore" is the best rated episode of "Monitor". It scored 8.4/10 based on 10 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 1/14/1962. This episode scored 0.2 points higher than the second highest rated, "Alfred Hitchcock".