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Brilliant Isles

Art That Made Us Series 1
Episode 8 of 8

An explosion of new voices from across the British Isles reinvents the arts, creating a richer, more diverse culture.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the generation of artists who recorded the shocks of global war gave way to an explosion of new voices from across the British Isles, reinventing the arts and creating a richer, more diverse culture. Young artists rebelled against the old establishment, kicking against the confines of class, sex, nation and race. Actress Lesley Sharp performs passages from Shelagh Delaney’s breakthrough play A Taste of Honey, which brought the ordinary lives and unheard voices of working class women to a mainstream audience, while Chila Kumari Singh Burman explores the career of pop artist Pauline Boty.

As British pop culture seduced the world, other voices lamented for something they felt was being lost. Writer and comedian David Baddiel reflects on Philip Larkin’s elegy for the countryside, Going, Going, and addresses the controversy today about Larkin’s attitude to immigration and race. Film director Amma Asante meets photographer Charlie Phillips, a photographic pioneer who recorded the fast-changing community of 1960s Notting Hill, and we look at the impact of Hanif Kureishi’s novel about second-generation immigrant life, The Buddha of Suburbia.

The most striking art of the 1990s chipped away at easy stereotyping and monolithic identities. In Scotland, Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, rooted in a raw Scots dialect and a brutal depiction of Edinburgh life, spoke for a world proudly distinct from its English neighbour, while the murals on and around the Belfast Peace Lines became loud spaces for declaration of distinct political allegiance.

With digital technology and installation art changing British culture, artist Liv Wynter explores the impact of Tracey Emin’s work and how it opened up attitudes to class and gender, while actor Michael Sheen remembers his ambitious 2011 production The Passion of Port Talbot, a fusion of traditional mystery play and a 21st-century social media event that could weld a community together. And poet Deanna Rodger reflects on how Stormzy and grime took hold of Glastonbury in 2019 and what it might mean for British identity and inclusion.

Available now

59 minutes

Last on

Tue 12 Dec 2023 02:50
±«Óãtv Four

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Clip

Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:00

    Villagers

    Pieces

  • 00:01

    Pulp

    Disco 2000 (7" Mix)

  • 00:05

    Doves

    Here It Comes

  • 00:08

    Sandy Nelson

    In Beat

  • 00:08

    James Darren

    Goodbye Cruel World

  • 00:12

    Harold McNair

    The Hipster

  • 00:14

    Caribou

    Melody Day (Fout Tet Remix) (feat. Luke Lalonde, Adem and One Little Plane)

  • 00:16

    Brian Eno

    The Big Ship

  • 00:23

    Ghostpoet

    Nothing In The Way

  • 00:25

    The Streets

    Streets Score

  • 00:27

    David Bowie

    Fill Your Heart

  • 00:29

    Mogwai

    I Am Not Batman

  • 00:29

    Spiritualized

    Harmony 3 (Voice)

  • 00:30

    Franz Ferdinand

    Fade Together

  • 00:31

    Slam

    Positive Education

  • 00:33

    Roots Manuva

    Motion 5000

  • 00:36

    Doves

    ¸é±ð±è°ù¾±²õ±ðÌý

  • 00:37

    Sylvester

    You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)

  • 00:38

    Aphex Twin

    i

  • 00:42

    Blur

    No Distance Left To Run

  • 00:48

    Gwenno

    Hi A Skoellyas Liv A Dhagrow

  • 00:52

    Dizzee Rascal

    Sittin Here

  • 00:51

    Aphex Twin

    Ageispolis

  • 00:53

    Skepta

    It Ain't Safe (feat. Young Lord)

  • 00:54

    Stormzy

    Know Me From

  • 00:54

    Wiley

    BMO Field

  • 00:55

    Stormzy

    Cold

Credits

Narrator David Threlfall
Director Duncan Singh
Producer Ewan Roxburgh
Series Producer Melanie Fall
Executive Producer Michael Jackson
Executive Producer Denys Blakeway
Production Company ClearStory Ltd

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