Can we have a thread to share interesting and preferably old-ish TV documentaries? Anything goes! Please share.

[Snooks1971]

I love a documentary that you can only see on YouTube. I’m into 1970s ones atm. Then the algorithm goes so narrow and ONLY shows me 70s docs. I need to see more…
I like the BBC Archive ones.
During lockdown I watched an 80s Boarding School documentary but I’ve been unable to find it since.
Can we share good ones?

Here’s one of mine, love Olly Reed

Not 1970s, but Oil City Confidential by Julian Temple is a very fine documentary film about the band Dr Feelgood who started in the 70s. What wonderfully wacky teacher Wilko Johnson must have been. About a million times cooler than that other famous former teacher musician, Sting.

Party 7 in a tin :)

It's quite an eye opener to British society, and also to the way it has changed over the years.

Another gem from the BBC Archive.

H. Samuel - 12 mill pounds turnover a year, Then! Wow.

This may already have been posted, but if not, Three Salons at the Seaside is brilliant
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0d2pngh/three-salons-at-the-seaside

I can’t wait to watch this!!!

Edited to say I love this thread!

If anyone can help me find a documentary about Blackpool Pontins would be v grateful. It must have been late 80s. It followed the Bluecoats from audition to the end of the season. There was an older Bluecoat who sang Jennifer Rush's Power of love at her audition.

I love the mad eccentricity of these, from the late 70s:

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The second one, with a young Mary Berry wheeling around a barbecue made of a wheelbarrow has me feeling like I am hallucinating.

There was a rash of reality tv/living in the past documentaries around the millennium iirc. The 1940s House, Back in Time for Dinner, The Edwardian Country House etc etc. I think they were all made by Wall to Wall but they never seem to be repeated, never streamed or on YouTube. They are only (some) available on dvd as far as I can see. I'd like to them again.

I seem to remember the woman of the house for the 1940s house was vegetarian which was quite difficult for her.

I also really like The Great War about the First World War. That's on YouTube. I think it was made 50 years after the start? Michael Redgrave narrates. It's quite a different feel to The World at War; fewer bits of ordinary people reflecting, more actors voicing politicians and generals of the time.

It's easy to spend hours on YouTube going down a rabbit hole and watching old documentaries and bits of old home movies etc.

Sounds a bit weird but Dh and I like to watch Wanderizm sometimes which is filmed looking out the window of various London bus routes 😃

I tried clicking on those @JustGoClickLikeALightSwitch and it came up with "this video is unavailable" ☹️

PS As soon as I read the posts about The World at War and The Victorian Kitchen the theme tunes played in my head 😊

Gah! YouTube Mary Berry Thames TV barbecue / freezer.

👍 @JustGoClickLikeALightSwitch

Sailing, about the old Ark Royal deploying to the USA in 1976.
QED was an interesting series of programmes.
James Burke was amazing.

Fourteen Days in May from 1987 has always stuck with me. It chronicles the final 14 days of Edward Earl Johnson who was represented by Clive Stafford a British born lawyer and founder of Reprive.

If anyone speaks French or is learning French and looking for something interesting to watch then INA on YouTube, the channel of the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, offers up some vintage gems.

This one is nicely seasonal.

I just came to post this one too 🤓

Not sure if this is on iPlayer but currently watching Rich Hall documentaries that he did in the 2010s on all aspects of American type stuff.

This one's on the cold war atomic programme and cold war

A Change of Sex on BBC iplayer. Follows the life of a man who wants to be a woman from the 70s to 90s. I am firmly GC but found this fascinating and moving when I first watched it as a student about 30yrs ago and then again quite recently.

BBC4 did a whole series a few years ago about British leisure called Timeslip. I found one late at night about our love for touring caravans and Sam Alpa who founded Sprite Caravans after the war, also the British coach holiday in the 50/60s. There were lots more including pigeon racing!

After The World At War, the next best documentary series, in my opinion, was People’s Century. It was made maybe late 90s and showed just how far we came in that one century. Has anyone come across it recently? I’d love to watch it again.

Paul’s children is really interesting. It’s about the choir school at St Paul’s cathedral in the 1970’s.

Back in 1995 as part of the 50 years since VE day celebrations, the BBC produced a documentary about the progress of the war using only archive film, no presenter, the film was accompanied by music of the time and the naration was done as subtitles across the bottom of the screen. I found it very moving and interesting but I've been unable to find it since. I don't even know what it was called.

It might be listed on the BBC archive of Radio Times listings, if it was shown around VE day 1995.

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/acf95d07ccdc40c08c584f5803391d5e

Tried googling just now. The premise sounds like the Rock n Roll years but for the 40s