Always on Sunday

S1, E1: Ken Russell's playful and exuberant 1965 film about the artist Henri Rousseau. Divided into roughly three acts, the film charts the life of Rousseau from being rejected and despised by all, to having his work championed by the mighty Picasso. The film fizzes with the sort of inventiveness that comes from working with low budgets but editorial freedom and after its first broadcast was favourably compared to the early films of Truffaut and Richard Lester. Always on Sunday is a delight, and a vindication of the maxim that good films are made not with an abundance of money, but with an abundance of ideas.