British Contemporary History

wrong with the world where one can watch more cookery programmes in one evening than post-war British history in an entire week.  Or is it that those of us who think that history is important are expected to read it in books.  Summer scheduling means that this week it is mainly re-runs.

The one high point is the second part of the Kavita Puri’s radio series Three Pounds in My Pocket which offers an engrossing oral history of Asian immigration to Britain and their experience of racism and resistance to it from the late 1960s and through the 1970s.

Details can be found on the TV and Radio page.

A week that really shows the limitations of broadcast contemporary history.  The BBC delves into it own “secret” archives but only to have Penelope Keith retail celebratory chit-chat and  Jools Holland goes on a nostalgia trip to the big bands of Second World War Blackpool while Len Goodman get bleary-eyed about the swing bands of 1950s Britain (and all of this on BBC4).  Elsewhere we have spires and royals, although in the last case the programme about the establishment’s reaction of the establishment to Prince Philip courting of Princess Elizabeth might well hold the interest.

Details can be found on the TV and Radio page.

Another poor seven days of contemporary British history on the airwaves.  We have Peter Hennessy interviewing Thatcher’s Chancellor Nigel Lawson on Radio 4 but not much else that is new.  There is a rerun for the second part of James Holland’s Cold War, Hot Jets, a misty eyed eulogy to military jets which has a wrapper of pro-nuclear propaganda in the place where real history should be.  Details can be found on the TV and Radio page.

Another thin week.  If you are interested in nuclear bombs, the planes that carried them and the surrounding cast of spies, this week is for you.   So we have a radio documentary on the British involvement in the development of the nuclear bomb, a repeat of a BBC documentary about British jet technology in the Cold War and an interesting radio piece about how MI5 was always more a matter of dirty politics as La Carré has described rather than the glamour of James Bond.  The only non-military history the broadcasters can muster this week is Peter Hennessy interviewing David Owen in a new series on BBC Radio 4 of Reflections.

Details can be found on the TV and Radio page.

Another poor week for contemporary British history on television, with the second part of a second-rate BBC4 documentary looking at grammar schools through a nostalgic fog of meritocratic incense.  Radio 4 offers some respite.

Details can be found on the TV and Radio page.

A very thin week for contemporary British history on terrestrial TV and radio.   We have a repeat of a BBC4 history of the grammar school (I have included a short review of the first part under the link below) and a Radio 4 profile of the black comedian Charlie Williams, who perhaps broke down barriers by being a black mainstream entertainer (seen as host of The Golden Shot above) while erecting them again with his willingness to pander to racism in his audience.

Details can be found on the TV and Radio page.

Another thin week for contemporary British history on terrestrial TV and radio.  We have the BBC in the last day of WWII, post-war bohemian London, Bloody Sunday, changing attitudes towards gay people and not much more

Details can be found on the TV and Radio page.

Sorry that I have missed a couple of weeks, but here is this week’s offering.  Quite a bit of culture and music has been thrown in this week.  Minimalist music in Britain is far from the mainstream concerns of general contemporary history (Minimal Impact, Radio 4, Tuesday 11:30am) but the changing face of music festivals (Festival Britannia, BBC2, Friday 10:00pm) is clearly become an aspect of our consumer and youth cultures.  Other highlights include BBC trumpeting its own role in war reporting since 1939 (The BBC at War, BBC2, Sunday 9:00pm).  Anyone would think the BBC charter is up for renewal.

Details can be found on the TV and Radio page

This week’s of contemporary British history on TV demonstrates what is wrong with the genre – too much romanticised nostalgia and too little questioning and probing of our collective past.  Only Panorama seems likely to deliver something serious if it can come with the goods on the British state collusion with loyalist paramilitaries during the Troubles.  Unusually, Radio 4 is a complete washout this week.  Details can be found on the TV and Radio page.

Not a great deal this week.  A couple of men-and-motors clip fests posing as documentaries (sorry about the picture, but i could find a picture of EH Carr in a Jag).  The most likely highlight is Radio 4’s all too short examination of Ukrainians in Britain.  Details can be found on the TV and Radio page.