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Writer, journalist, essayist and filmmaker Jonathan Meades introduces a preview showing of his forthcoming BBC documentary on Mussolini and the architecture of the Fascist era, followed by a question and answer session.

Having investigated the architecture of Hitler and Stalin’s regimes in previous films, Meades now turns his attention to another notorious 20th-century European dictator. When it comes to the buildings of the Fascist era, Meades discovers a dictator who could not dictate as he was caught between the contending forces of modernism and a revivalism that harked back to Ancient Rome. The result was a variety of styles that still influence architecture today.

The programme sees Meades visit Rome, Milan, Genoa, the new town of Sabaudia and the vast military memorials of Redipuglia and Monte Grappa. Along the way, he ponders on the nature of Fascism, the influence of the Futurists and Mussolini’s love of a fancy uniform.

Meades is well known for his individual presenting style. He has written and performed in more than 50 television shows on subjects ranging from shacks to garden cities, megastructures, beer, pigs and the architecture of Stalin and Hitler. His recent memoir, An Encyclopaedia of Myself, won Best Memoir in the Spear’s Book Awards 2014 and was shortlisted for the 2015 Pen Ackerley Prize. Here he talks to writer and journalist Paul Blezard.

This event lasts two hours.

Historian and television presenter Dr Suzannah Lipscomb explores the time when British people embraced modern design for the first time after years of austerity and self-denial and introduces some preview clips from her forthcoming BBC series on Wednesday.