Wed, Jan 21, 2009
Documentary which takes a provocative and entertaining journey through the BBC's own fashion collection. For 50 years the BBC has often treated fashion as a frivolous, decadent diversion from the serious matters of life, but now a 'style council' of fashion writers and commentators including Peter York, Colin McDowell, Ted Polhemus and Hilary Alexander turns the tables and lets British fashion take on the BBC. In the 1950s we find programmes debating whether men should decide what women wear. In the 1960s we see Alan Whicker unleashed upon the 'silly, superficial world' of French couture, while the big story of Mary Quant is almost ignored back home. In the 1970s comes the revulsion against punk style, and it is not until the 1980s that TV treats fashion with any kind of appreciation with The Clothes Show, generally held as the BBC's finest hour in the world of dressing up. The programme concludes that British fashion is unique in that it is driven more by youth culture than by fashion houses. Through the stories of the models, the designers, the photographers and the clothes themselves, it shows how the establishment has come to terms with the transformation of post-war Britain.
Wed, Apr 1, 2009
Journalist John Harris travels around England to find out why the north-south divide is still an economic reality and if anything can be done to close it. Oasis v Blur, Manchester United v Chelsea, Old Labour v New Labour and pies v polenta - Harris wonders whether it is a light-hearted rivalry about accents, music, sport, food and politics or something deeper. Our high streets look the same, we drive the same cars, we eat at the same chains, but beneath the surface lies a more troubling story of economic inequalities that define a divide that won't go away. The decline of industry and manufacturing still blights the north, while a house costs on average a third more in the south and southerners live longer and healthier lives. But can the north-south divide really be as stark as the gap between East and West Germany during the dark days of the Berlin Wall, as one contributor claims?