This series has, the sleeve-notes tell us, been inspired by books of classic photographic prints. Instead of classic photographs, we have here 104 one-minute movie clips of "many of the world's most famous and influential personalities of the last century".

We get image only. All original sound has been removed, replaced by the sort of muzak one imagines can be heard all day long in the worst sort of retirement homes.

This is a dreadful way to do something like this. When it comes to significant historical people such as Churchill or Muhammad Ali, the voice is just as important as the face. Without their original sound, these little image-grabs are mostly meaningless.

And the choice is terrible. It is predominantly an endless string of minor political figures and dreadful members of the British royal family - it was obviously compiled by someone with a royal fetish! There are quite a few sportspeople too - Ali of course, Pele, Joe Louis - but the real creators of the 20th century, its painters, writers, musicians and actors, are given short-shrift.

Picasso is here as the token painter and Margot Fonteyn as well - but they're pure tokenism. Such non-events as Sarah Armstrong-Jones or Princess Anne are deemed far more important than real contributors to our era.

It's a paltry effort, both in its choice of subjects and its mode of presentation.

The transfers of the historical footage, mostly black-and-white material, have been well done. Pity about the choice of that footage!