Dan Cruickshank

Dan Cruickshank reveals the extraordinary story behind the design and building of iconic First World War memorials and explores the idea behind the creation of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

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Historian Dan Cruickshank and photographer Don McCullin venture into the heart of war-torn Syria on a dangerous mission to document the cultural destruction wrought by ISIS.

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Dan Cruickshank takes an up-close-and-personal look at the place we are all familiar with but rarely stop to question – our home. Why are those stairs at that angle? Why is the kitchen at the back of the house? Why are some houses made of wattle and daub, and some of brick? And why do some live in a terrace and some in a flat? How did the British home end up looking the way it does – and why?

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Dan Cruickshank returns to his childhood home of Warsaw for the first time in almost 60 years. In a personal and moving film, he recalls his boyhood memories to explore the memories of the city and the memories of its people. No city in Europe suffered so much destruction in the Second World War, no city rose up so heroically from the ashes. The Nazis had razed Warsaw to the ground, but after the war the people fought hard to bring their city back from the dead in one of the greatest reconstruction jobs in history. As a boy, Cruickshank lived in the rebuilt old town and it inspired his love of architecture and made him the man he is today.

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Islamic State has declared war on the most important and romantic ancient architectural sites in the world. Jihadi fighters seek the total destruction of the wonders of the ancient world that gave us writing, the wheel and the first cities. Dan Cruickshank charts the likely course of Islamic State's destructive advance and asks how this can be happening and what we can do to stop them.

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As good as any Dickens novel, this is the triumphant and tragic story of the greatest architectural dynasty of the 19th century. Dan Cruickshank charts the rise of Sir George Gilbert Scott to the very heights of success, the fall of his son George Junior and the rise again of his grandson Giles. It is a story of architects bent on a mission to rebuild Britain. From the Romantic heights of the Midland Hotel at St Pancras station to the modern image of Bankside power station (now Tate Modern), this is the story of a family that shaped the Victorian age and left a giant legacy.

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From the Tower of London to Buckingham Palace, Dan Cruickshank tells the story of a thousand years of palace building, the mystery of why so many have vanished and the magic of the ones that survive.

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Ludwig II of Bavaria, more commonly known by his nicknames the Swan King or the Dream King, is a legendary figure - the handsome boy-king, loved by his people, betrayed by his cabinet and found dead in tragic and mysterious circumstances. He spent his life in pursuit of the ideal of beauty, an ideal that found expression in three of the most extraordinary, ornate architectural schemes imaginable - the castle of Neuschwanstein and the palaces of Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee. Today, these three buildings are among Germany's biggest tourist attractions. Dan Cruickshank explores the rich aesthetic of Ludwig II - from the mock-medievalism of Neuschwanstein, the iconic fairytale castle that became the inspiration for the one in Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty, to the rich Baroque splendour of Herrenchiemsee, Ludwig's answer to Versailles. Dan argues that Ludwig's castles are more than flamboyant kitsch and are, in fact, the key to unravelling the eternal enigma of Ludwig II.

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Dan Cruickshank explores the mysteries and secrets of the bridges that have made London what it is. He uncovers stories of Bronze-Age relics emerging from the Vauxhall shore, of why London Bridge was falling down, of midnight corpses splashing beneath Waterloo Bridge, and above all, of the sublime ambition of London's bridge builders themselves.

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The 17th century saw London plunge into a series of devastating disasters. The Civil War, a murderous plague, and the destruction of the great fire should have all but destroyed the small medieval city, but somehow it not only survived - it thrived. Dan Cruickshank explores how London survived the travails of the 17th century.

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Series looking at aspects of British metalworking over the centuries, including the art of the silversmith, the history of armour and the work of the blacksmith.

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Dan Cruickshank and Charlie Luxton uncover the incredible hidden stories behind historic buildings as they are dismantled brick by brick and meticulously resurrected in new locations.

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In 1728, 12-year-old James Annesley was snatched from the streets of Dublin and sold into slavery in America - the victim of a wicked uncle hell-bent on stealing his massive inheritance. Dan Cruickshank traces James's astonishing journey from the top table of 18th century society to its murky depths. The story, which helped inspire Robert Louis Stevenson's book Kidnapped, reveals some disturbing home truths that cast a shadow over the century of the Enlightenment.

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Climb up on the footplate and join historian and host Dan Cruickshank for a railway adventure like no other as he investigates how trains helped shape modern Britain. This three-part series resurrects an exhilarating age and kicks off by focusing on the railways' role in defeating Hitler, before unearthing the incredible engineering achievements of Isambard Brunel and embarking on a trip on the earliest steam engines.

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The British invented them for the world, and they have been described as 'the lungs of the city - historian Dan Cruickshank reveals the history of our public parks.

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Britain's railways were key to the development of Britain - they helped facilitate the Industrial Revolution, the suburbs- and the commuter - and created popular holiday destinations. They've even inspired poetry, film and song. Combining contemporary train journeys with ITN's extensive archive this series provides a unique and revealing history of Britain's railroads and our engineering evolution. In each episode our presenter will take a different rail journey across the UK, use historical rail guides, board classic trains, experience captivating views and explore fascinating histories and personal stories. We'll hear stories of success - and learn about the disasters which pushed the engineering forward.

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As the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew prepare to celebrate their 250th anniversary, Dan Cruickshank unearths some of the surprising stories that shaped the famous gardens. His travels take him from the royal gardens to the corridors of power and the outposts of Empire as he pieces together Kew's story, uncovering tales of bravery, high adventure, passion and drama.

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British architectural historian Dan Cruickshank explores the world's most unusual and interesting buildings, structures and sites, believing that architecture and a culture's aspirations and beliefs are intertwined. Among his visits are the Leshan Giant Buddha in China, St. Catherine's Monastery in Egypt, Kizhi Island in Russia and Pompeii in Italy.

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Historian and writer Dan Cruickshank celebrates architecture as a creative force as he explores the world's greatest cities, buildings and monuments.

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Through vintage amateur movies as well as archival Communist propaganda documentaries, this program turns back the clock to see what Tibet was like from the 1930s to 1950. After the popular and successful TV and DVD collaborations The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon and The Lost World of Friese-Greene, the BFI and BBC co-produced The Lost World of Tibet, broadcast on BBC Four on 3 March 2008.

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Dan Cruickshank retraces pioneering 1920s filmmaker Claude Friese-Greene's route around Britain. Dan travels through Wales and the Midlands to the Lakes.

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During 1924 and for the next two years, Claude Friese-Greene, filmmaker and cinematographer, embarked on an epic journey, and calling it The Open Road, which would bring the people and the lands of Great Britain together. From Land's End to Scotland's John O'Groats, and with his new and modern filming technique, that for once has the ability to film in colour. For the first time the people of England, and the world could see itself in colour. This modern-day retrospective looks back, and takes the same ride some eighty years later, reconnecting with past places and past memories. With its compare and contrast travelogue flavour, Dan Cruickshank, the British Film Institute and the BBC have revisited a journey of how we used to live and how, as a nation, have changed, since those glorious days of England's golden years. Wonderful colourful historical vision with its updated look into the past. Enchanting.

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Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank is a BBC Television documentary series in which Dan Cruickshank explores the mysteries of Ancient Egypt.

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Cruickshank takes a five-month world tour visiting his choices of the eighty greatest man-made treasures, including buildings and artifacts. His tour takes him through 34 countries and 6 of the 7 continents. In addition to seeing some of the world's greatest treasures, Cruickshank tries many different kinds of food including testicle, brain, and insects. His means of transportation included airplanes, trains, camel, donkey, foot, bicycle, scooter, hang glider, and boats.

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Examines the recent discovery of 800 short films from the Edwardian Age, made by pioneering film-makers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon.

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This unique recreation of an 18th-century home, in London's Spitalfields, has to be seen to be believed. Dan Cruickshank smells the rotting food and warms his hands by the roaring fires and asks whether this living museum is really more accurate than a National Trust treasure, or just an eccentric one-off from its outlandish Californian creator, the late Dennis Severs. A follow-up of sorts to the 1985 BBC series Ours to Keep episode "Incomers" focused on this residence.

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What the Industrial Revolution Did for Us is a BBC documentary series produced in conjunction with the Open University that examines the impact of the Industrial Revolution on modern society. It was originally broadcast on BBC Two in autumn 2003.

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Dan Cruickshank explores one of Britain’s last Victorian country homes, Tyntesfield, a Gothic fantasy frozen in time and a monument to the Victorian age.

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Documentary series which ranges widely over Britain's social and cultural history, its narrative-led storytelling offering a richly immersive and varied window onto the past.

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A BBC documentary series in which Dan Cruickshank examines attempts and plans to invade Britain and Ireland over the years by exploring coastal fortresses and defensive structures around the coast of the country to discover their military heritage.

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Dan Cruickshank examines how Victorian society confronted the issue of death by piecing together the fate of five seemingly unrelated corpses. His detective work uncovers bodysnatching, overflowing inner-city graveyards and lavish cemeteries. He also explores the Victorian resistance to cremation, and changing attitudes following the Great War. First aired during Victoria Week 2001, re-aired in 2002 as an episode of Timewatch.

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Series in which presenters explore architecture in the footsteps of Nikolaus Pevsner.

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Six films about people determined to defend historic buildings against the destructive effects of social change and market forces.

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Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast mainly on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The programme was the successor to the long-running arts-based series 'Monitor'. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings. During its 35-year history, the programme won 12 Bafta awards. Among the series' best remembered documentaries are Cracked Actor, a profile of David Bowie, and Rene Magritte, a graduate film by David Wheatley, 'Madonna: Behind the American dream', a film produced by Nadia Hagger, and a profile of the British film director Ridley Scott. For a season in 1982, the series was in a magazine format presented by Barry Norman. The series was replaced by 'Imagine' hosted by Alan Yentob.

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Dan Cruickshank reveals the extraordinary story behind the design and building of iconic First World War memorials and explores the idea behind the creation of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

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Historian Dan Cruickshank and photographer Don McCullin venture into the heart of war-torn Syria on a dangerous mission to document the cultural destruction wrought by ISIS.

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Dan Cruickshank takes an up-close-and-personal look at the place we are all familiar with but rarely stop to question – our home. Why are those stairs at that angle? Why is the kitchen at the back of the house? Why are some houses made of wattle and daub, and some of brick? And why do some live in a terrace and some in a flat? How did the British home end up looking the way it does – and why?

Open details →

Dan Cruickshank returns to his childhood home of Warsaw for the first time in almost 60 years. In a personal and moving film, he recalls his boyhood memories to explore the memories of the city and the memories of its people. No city in Europe suffered so much destruction in the Second World War, no city rose up so heroically from the ashes. The Nazis had razed Warsaw to the ground, but after the war the people fought hard to bring their city back from the dead in one of the greatest reconstruction jobs in history. As a boy, Cruickshank lived in the rebuilt old town and it inspired his love of architecture and made him the man he is today.

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