Season 7

2007 · 13 episodes

Episodes

1The Edwardian LarderDocumentary about the first mass-produced food brands focusing on Perrier water, Cadbury's Dairy Milk, Typhoo tea and Marmite. The tea-tasters of Typhoo explain how their predecessors turned a waste product into a bestseller. Chef Matthew Kay tries out some Edwardian recipes designed for vegetarian marmite fans.
2How To Be a Good Prime MinisterPolitical commentator Andrew Marr assesses what it takes to be a successful British premier based on the performance of the twenty prime ministers of the 20th century. Advocates such as Martin Bell, Helena Kennedy, Simon Schama and the late Bill Deedes champion their favourite PM in short films, while Andrew and a panel of historians and journalists debate what qualities they brought to the role and how successfully they did it, before coming to a decision on who was the greatest.
3Gagging For It: TV's Hunger for Radio ComedySince its earliest days, television has looked to radio comedy for the 'next big thing'. Radio hits from Hancock's Half-Hour to Little Britain have become TV classics. But other long-running radio favourites have died a death on the screen. So what makes for a sure-fire transfer?
4Whatever Happened to Radio 2?Radio 2 was created out of the old Light Programme, but the modern station, with its targeted playlists and big-name DJs like Jonathan Ross and Chris Evans, is now light years away from its origins - or is it? In the evenings, small and cherished slots still exist for devotees of Folk, Organ, Jazz, Brass and Light Music. This programme is an affectionate celebration of the unusual and much-loved corners of 88-91FM, of the fans and of those who continue to broadcast to them.
5Emmylou Harris's Ten Commandments of CountryLive performance in which Emmylou Harris presents her ten rules of what makes a great country song, personally chosen from her own extensive repertoire. Filmed in Los Angeles in an intimate venue, the show features songs with Emmylou accompanied by her blue grass band. Each track illustrates one of her 10 Commandments, with a short introduction to explain why it was chosen and what element of country music it best represents.
6Emmylou Harris at the BBCBBC collection of performances which traces Emmylou Harris's musical development from her first British TV appearance on the Old Grey Whistle Test right up to recent UK festival shows. Rarely seen archive from the BBC vaults nestles alongside more widely known material as Harris covers a broad spectrum of styles from country rock to Celtic traditional.
7Archaeology - Digging the PastAn exploration of the way archaeology has been presented on television over the past 50 years, from panel show Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?, which made celebrities out of its host Professor Glyn Daniel and resident character Sir Mortimer Wheeler, to Channel 4's contemporary Time Team. With contributions from archaeologists and broadcasters including Professor Barry Cunliffe, Tony Robinson and David Attenborough.
8Sir Mortimer Wheeler - A Life in RuinsProfile of Mortimer Wheeler, who became the public face of archaelogy for almost 40 years. With the arrival of television in the 1950s, the energetic and charismatic Wheeler became a celebrity and was the first to bring the subject to a mass audience. From Dorset to the Himalayas, from Television Centre to Zimbabwe, a vast array of archive footage shows how Wheeler informed and entertained the viewing public.
9Watching the RussiansBeginning with the rise of Russophobia in Victorian Britain, former MI5 director general Stella Rimington explores our love-hate relationship with Russia over the past 150 years. The journey takes her to the East End of London on the trail of Russian revolutionaries and to the former mining town of Chopwell, once dubbed Little Moscow. She talks to former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky and shares recollections of the bugged British embassy in Moscow with former ambassador Rodric Braithwaite.
10Never Had It So Good?Writer Colin Shindler returns to Manchester to revisit his childhood and tell his own intensely personal, boys own story of a paradoxical year, 1957, the one in which prime minister Harold Macmillan declared that 'most of our people have never had it so good'. In the company of leading historians, he takes a snapshot of 1957 to explore what it was really like to live in Never Had It So Good Britain and to find out whether Macmillan was right.
11A Game of Two Eras: 1957 v 2007Using computerised analysis, an experiment to find out how English football has really changed in the past 50 years by comparing every aspect of the FA Cup finals of 2007 and 1957.
12Stuffed: The Great British Christmas DinnerIt's the season of peace and goodwill to all, when we think of those less fortunate than ourselves. It's also the time of year when we stuff our faces and gorge and drink ourselves silly. Christmas dinner is served. Being the last great feast in the British culinary tradition, what role does it play today?
13The Rise and Fall of the Ad ManInspired by the maverick US advertisers of Madison Avenue, a new generation of British ad men created a unique style of advertising based on authentic British culture. It tapped into home-grown humour and marketed itself as almost a branch of the arts. During the 1970s, British ads came to be regarded as the best in the world.