BBC Bowie blitz in January
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Editor
| 06 November 2016

To mark what would have been the 70th birthday of the artist whose work shaped British music and culture for five decades, the BBC has confirmed a special retrospective around David Bowie.


David Bowie: The Last Five Years will focus on the three major projects of Bowie's last five years - the best-selling albums, The Next Day and Blackstar, alongside the musical Lazarus, which is arriving in London this autumn. The programming was commissioned by Jan Younghusband for BBC TWO and produced and directed by Francis Whately for BBC Studios. BBC executive producer is Phil Dolling. It is distributed internationally by BBC Worldwide.

As with the first film, this new piece will feature rare and unseen archive footage and early audio interviews, which have never been released before. This includes the original vocal that Bowie recorded for Lazarus, his last release before his death,*which has never been heard before.

Commenting on his film, Whately said: “I always hoped that I would make another film about Bowie as we were only able to scratch the surface in the first film, but I just didn’t expect it to be this soon. However, looking at Bowie’s extraordinary creativity during the last five years of his life has allowed me to re-examine his life’s work and move beyond the simplistic view that his career was simply predicated on change - Bowie the chameleon… ‘ch ch ch changes’ etc. Instead, I would like to show how the changes were often superficial, but the core themes in his work were entirely consistent – alienation, mortality and fame.”

Digital channel BBC Four will broadcast Bowie at the BBC, a compilation of rarely-seen archive exploring Bowie’s incredible career as captured by the BBC from his very first appearance in 1964 through to his death in 2016.

“BBC TWO is thrilled to have commissioned this unique documentary chronicling the most recent achievements of one of the most significant figures in the history of music,” said Adam Barker, channel executive for BBC TWO and BBC Four.