Season 1
17 episodes · 1990
3Doing the Dishes
A celebration of the satellite dish, looking at their history and considering the prospects for designer dishes.
4Sexual Intercourse Began in 1963
Trial of the book and the acquittal of Penguin Books ushered in the freedom of the Sixties. With dramatic reconstructions this programme recreates the atmosphere of the time and tells the story of Lawrence's lifelong battle with the censors.
5The Thing Is... Prisons
Paul Morley looks at prisons, historic and new, and at the "interior design" practiced by prisoners within their cells.
7Tunnel Visions: 1
The mutual mistrust between the French and the English goes back centuries. A British television team looks at the way the French are adjusting to a world in which many of their ideals - revolution, patriotism and national culture - seem to be increasingly irrelevant.
8Tunnel Visions: 2
A French television team looks behind the stereotypes and asks what the public role of British intellectuals is at a time when the channel tunnel is forcing the two societies together.
9Tracks of My Tears
Inspired by the footballer, Paul Gascoigne, this documentary with music from Smokey Robinson and Sydney Devine, looks at men in tears - in art, pop, music, sport, the cinema and politics.
10J'accuse: The Rolling Stones
Rock critic Sean O'Hagan argues that the Rolling Stones are a burnt-out collection of middle-aged men who have failed to mature or find a late style. He also suggests that they have become the opposite of much of what they once stood for.
12The Thing Is... Christmas Decorations
Paul Morley looks at Christmas decorations. Why do we want them? What do they mean to us and what do they say about us? How do the stores entice us to buy them? Do they offer a taste of a traditional Christmas or plastic nostalgia for a non-existent Golden Age?
13Sleeping Beauty Rediscovered
Looking at the Royal Ballet's film started in the 1960s and left unfinished.
14J'accuse: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Looks at the hype behind the Mozart bicentennial celebrations.
15Black Athena
Examines the ideas of Martin Bernal set out in book Black Athena (1987) in which he argues that the Wests view of Greek civilization has been distorted to promote the Aryan model to the detriment of black African and Semitic cultures.