Sky Arts adds Gallagher, Simz to line-up

European pay broadcaster Sky’s UK arts and culture channel Sky Arts has ordered original music programmes featuring performers including Noel Gallagher and Little Simz.

Phil Edgar-Jones

Noel Gallagher – Out of the Now sees the songwriter perform music and discuss significant moments in his life and career at Duke of York’s Theatre in London, playing songs by his bands Oasis and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

The Live Revival is a three-parter where artists such as Little Simz and Paul Weller revisit the regional venues they gigged in at the start of their careers to give exclusive one-off performances in a bid to spotlight much-loved pubs and clubs that are increasingly under threat.

The commissions join a slate of music programmes set to be carried by the channel, which went free to air last year.

The new shows include three new episodes of factual series Classic Albums from Universal Music Group-owned Mercury Studios, each covering a UK album that has shaped the course of music.

The show will look at The Who Sell Out by The Who on April 23, Jazzie B’s Soul II Soul Club Classics Vol 1 on April 30 and Suede’s Coming Up on May 7.

Sky Arts will also air Song for Nature, a concert curated for London Climate Change Festival; classical music performance Handel’s La Resurrezione; Matt Deighton: Overshadowed, about the life, music and mental health challenges of the front man of Mother Earth; feature doc Chrissie Hynde Sings Bob Dylan; festival show Best of Download Festival; and violin programme Falling for Stradivari.

Finally, the channel has lined up Indian classical music show Darbar Indian Music Festival and Guy Garvey: From The Vaults, which sees the Elbow frontman lifting the lid on decades of TV gold, including era-defining performances and interviews that haven’t been seen for years.

Phil Edgar Jones, director of Sky Arts and Entertainment, said: “I don’t know what I’d have done without my favourite music to get me through lockdown, and while we are still missing the joys of live performance, Sky Arts is here with the next best thing.”