- Radio Times
- Review by:
- Alison Graham
Slade topping the charts with their new yuletide single Merry Christmas Everybody, shops in darkness, television broadcasts ending at 10.30pm, a state of emergency… it can only be the miserable Christmas of 1973.
Historian Dominic Sandbrook takes us through this most gloomy of supposedly festive seasons at the height of the three-day week and the Heath government’s stand-off with the miners, whose overtime ban crippled the country.
But never mind, eh, because we had pornography to cheer us up, loads of it. This was boom time for the permissive society, says Sandbrook, lurking in a Soho doorway. Britain was awash with filth, magazine stands were full of muck and in Last Tango in Paris Marlon Brando was up to his armpit in butter. And he wasn’t baking a Victoria sponge.
About this programme
2/4. Dominic Sandbrook continues his history of the decade with a look at the years 1973 and 1974. As Britain celebrated the wedding of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips, war raged in the Middle East - and in retaliation for western support of Israel, the Arab oil producers hiked up their prices. Dominic considers how this led to escalating inflation, partly caused by the mass consumerism resulting from access to easy credit. He also touches on growing awareness to global environmentalism and how erotica came to the masses thanks to movies like Last Tango in Paris.
Cast and crew
Cast
- Presenter
- Dominic Sandbrook
Crew
- Director
- Mary Crisp
- Executive Producer
- Dominic Crossley-Holland
- Producer
- Mary Crisp
- Series Producer
- Steve Condie
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