The true story of an ordinary man, a decadent king, and the woman caught between them! In the west of France, Prince de Conde has a scheme to save his bankrupt province: he'll regain the favor of King Louis XIV with a weekend of spectacle and merriment.

This "visual and musical tribute to the frozen continent" is essentially a recording of Vaughan Williams' Sinfonia Antartica complemented by several documentaries and other information on the frozen southern wilderness. Based on his 1948 score for the film Scott of the Antarctic, the Sinfonia Antartica became Vaughan Williams' seventh symphony. Together, the five movements offer a musical depiction of the South Pole's landscape and character. The composer preceded each movement with a quotation from a variety of literary sources including Shelley, Donne, the Psalms and Captain Scott's diary, and these have been included here.

The music is performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under James Judd and provides the soundtrack to film footage of the continent: sea and sky, snow and ice, mountains and icebergs, fish, birds and mammals. Unfortunately, most viewers will have been spoilt by the stunning film work for The Blue Planet, so much of the footage here will seem very ordinary in comparison, bland even. However, the programme does work as an introduction to the continent, the first men to explore it (on the informative documentary "Icebound") and the artists whom it has inspired (Vaughan Williams as well as the two poets and painter featured in "Reflections from Antarctica").

On the DVD: Sinfonia Antartica has been digitally remastered in 5.1 Surround Sound, but the picture could be sharper. A series of facts and a sizeable extract courtesy of the Lonely Planet guides would have been better produced in a booklet rather than put onto the disc itself. The DVD is in English and there are no subtitles in this or any other language. --Rebecca Agnew