Publisher: MCP
Reference: MCP-079
Date: 2007
Video: NTSC 4:3, 720x480, 29.97 fps, 8000 Kbps
Audio: MPEG-2, 2 channels, 48 KHz, 384 Kbps
This is the decade of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll and the Beatles are right
in the thick of it. This series puts into context events around the globe,
and in Britain, that took place during the sixties. And asks what is the
real legacy of the swinging sixties? We follow the Beatles career from
Liverpool to the world stage and from innocence to drug taking.
We hear from: Mary Quant, Sian Phillips, Hunter Davies, Paul Gambaccini,
Alan Bleasdale, Rita Tushingham. Lord Heseltine, Steven Berkoff, Tony Benn,
George Melly and Philip Norman, to name just a few. They tell us where
they were at key moments in the decade the shooting of JFK and the Cuban
missile crisis and what the sexual revolution and the end of a class bound
Britain meant to them.
By the end of the decade, Britain had genuinely changed. Youth culture had
been born. Political protest had taken to the streets; and blind, class
deference had gone forever. The Beatles had personified this social
revolution - and their split coincided with the return of conservatism.
But in the historical ebb-and-flow of the decades that followed much of
this change would be permanent. The world really would never be the same
again.
Programme 1: Teenage Rebels 1960- 1961
The Beatles' decade began in Liverpool in July 1957 when 16 year old John
Lennon and 15 year old Paul McCartney met. This chance encounter produced
one of the most important musical partnerships of the 20th Century. They
listened to American artists and hung out in the Jacaranda coffee bar.
They were part of a new breed of "teenagers" who benefited from their
parents increasing affluence. Fashion was changing too, and Mary Quant
designed youthful and colourful dresses. In America, youth was winning too,
and Kennedy was elected President. The Beatles went to Hamburg in 1960 and
discovered freedom, sexual freedom. But the Cuba Missile Crisis posed a
great threat to world peace. Working class writers and actors started to
emerge along with the Beatles. Everything was changing. Music, consumer
goods, fashion - the sixties generation really did seem to have it all.
Programme 2: Sex, spies and rock & roll 1962 - 1964
In Liverpool in 1962 the Beatles caused a sensation at the Cavern Club.
They had only one single to their name. But a fateful meeting with Brian
Epstein was to help them top the charts. Epstein changed their image from
the American biker look and realised the Sixties was the selling decade.
Youth was all the rage and the old Tory Prime Minister Harold McMillian
seemed out of step with the times. The Profumo sex scandal nailed the
Tories and before long Harold Wilson's Labour government took power. The
age of deference had passed and the Beatles played up their cheeky persona.
As Beatlemania was exported around the world, it embodied the optimism and
national pride which had infected Britain. By the end of 1964 Britain had
shifted into a modern age. The Beatles success was evidence that a more
meritocratic society had arrived and class barriers had fallen.
Programme 3: Swinging Britain 1965-1966
By 1965 the cultural renaissance of Britain was in full swing and the
Beatles embodied the feeling of optimism. Having won over at home the
Beatles were ready to take on the world. The new fashion labels like Biba,
new faces like Twiggy and hair dressers like Vidal Sasson were an important
ingredient in the Swinging London explosion. However, the economy was in
a terrible state Harold Wilson had inherited huge debts and done little to
stem the problem. And The Beatles lives as superstars had turned into a
living hell by 1966.
Programme 4: Street Fighting Years 1967 - 1968
In April 1967 The Beatles produced the drug fuelled Sgt Peppers, an Album
that was to change everything. The Beatles had turned to eastern mysticism
and become distant from their mentor, Epstein, who died suddenly. Britain
was undergoing a radical transformation from the legalisation of
homosexuality and abortion to the relaxation of theatre censorship and
introduction of the 'no contest' divorce. But soon the social revolution
was overtaken by political revolt on the streets against the Vietnam War.
At the beginning of 1968 the Beatles took control of their own careers.
They had a grand vision of a media empire and set up a number of companies
under the name Apple. It was a disaster. Privately the Beatles were arguing
about Yoko, about what they should record, about the future. Outwardly they
were still sensationally successful. But there was trouble brewing.
Programme 5: The Party Is Over 1969 - 1970
As the decade came to an end a more chaotic world was to come. But what
had changed dramatically during the 1960s was the education system and
the introduction of the 11+ . Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney went
onto Liverpool Grammar schools. But now their new wives, Linda and Yoko
with very different personalities, had one thing in common - they were
strong, independent women. In this they typified the changing relationship
between men and women which was beginning to emerge in the late sixties.
The Beatles split up and Harold Wilson gone, the Sixties had well and
truly ended.
Director PAUL OREMLAND (EPS 1, 4 & 5) & LI-DA KRUGER (EPS 2 & 3)
Exec Producer TRACEY GARDINER & PHILIP OSBORN
Series Producer PAUL OREMLAND Edited by JUSTIN BADGER (EPS 1, 4 & 5) &
JANE GREENWOOD (EPS 2 & 3)
Narrator BERNARD HILL
