Radio Times

Review by:

David Butcher

The final instalment of Dominic Sandbrook’s social history has a rather downbeat feel. A bit incongruously, it should be said, Canadian singer Terry Jacks’s 1974 hit Seasons in the Sun plays over dramatic footage of collapsing high-rise blocks. Don’t Cry for Me Argentina, from the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical Evita, recalls Scotland’s World Cup misery. And then there’s the full gloom of 1978–79’s Winter of Discontent, which put the bristles in Margaret Thatcher’s new broom (Abba sing Take a Chance on Me as she goes campaigning in 1979).

But for all the inflation, unrest and crumbling of consensus, Sandbrook insists this was where today’s Britain was born. And somebody was on the up, as we see from the sequence on party-loving entrepreneur, Richard Branson.

About this programme

4/4. Dominic Sandbrook examines the final three years of the decade. He tells the story of Richard Branson, one of many entrepreneurs who turned the hippie philosophy of the 1960s into a successful business ethic, and examines how the post-war concrete housing estates had become associated with violence, vandalism and misery. He also considers how the launch of new children's TV show Grange Hill caused concern with its frank depiction of the comprehensive education system. Last in the series.

Cast and crew

Cast

Presenter

Dominic Sandbrook

Crew

Director

Paul Tilzey

Executive Producer

Dominic Crossley-Holland

Producer

Paul Tilzey

Series Producer

Steve Condie

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