The centenary of Benjamin Britten is marked with a new study by the multi-award-winning director Tony Palmer. It is a dark coda to Palmer's four other Italia-Prize-winning films with and about Britten, whom many now regard as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. This extraordinary film explores Britten's uneasy relationship to the wider world. The bloodiest century in history profoundly affected Britten, not just because he was a committed pacifist, but on a much deeper level. What is the role of the artist in such a troubled world? What are his responsibilities? What is the nature of creativity itself? What is it's function? Does it have a function? Man's inhumanity to Man now, and always. This is the subject matter which preoccupied Britten and that is the subject of this film.

This is the story of how the most famous dancer that England has ever produced was deceived and betrayed by those closest to her; of how a little girl called Peggy Hookham, brought up in Shanghai, told her mother she would one day become the greatest dancer in the world; and of how, in spite of being almost unable to walk, she was still performing when she was 67. It is a story of courage and tenacity, of unbelievable devotion - to her art and to those whom she loved who, in the end, left her penniless and alone, even to the extent that she was buried at first in a pauper's grave. It is the stuff of fiction - except that it is true. Among the ballets featured are: Romeo & Juliet, Swan Lake, Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, Marguerite & Armand, & The Nutcracker'with Rudolf Nureyev, Frederick Ashton, Robert Helpmann, Ninette de Valois, Roland Petit, Monica Mason, Lynn Seymour, Antoinette Sibley, Anthony Dowell & Beryl Grey.