Bakewell at the BBC

This programme contains some scenes of a sexual nature

Oh!

APPLAUSE

CHEERING

Good heavens, it's Joan Bakewell.

Hello, darling. What the dickens are you doing here?

Ladies and gentlemen, my little friend Joan Bakewell.

APPLAUSE

-Joan, gorgeous to see you.

-Good to see you.

-Beautiful.

Oh, ladies and gentlemen, this multi-talented lass.

I've watched your career

with growing interest, Joan.

And how did you stumble in here, by the way?

I came in here to interview Barry Humphries in depth.

In-depth, well you'll certainly be doing that, dear,

he'd be up to his eyes by now.

LAUGHTER

Yes, I am afraid I have been obliged at the eleventh hour to hold

the fort here, so you'll have to interview me, dear.

And I have never been interviewed by an intellectual equal before.

LAUGHTER

Only by Russell Harty.

LAUGHTER

I always wanted to have a largish library,

because I'd accumulated a large number of books.

Partly by error and partly left to me.

And by great good luck, we found this hall here,

which did accommodate them nearly all.

Which of your paintings has given you the greatest pleasure?

Which picture? Oh...

..I suppose, really, the Renoir,

the Baigneuse Blonde, was the picture that

gave me the most pleasure that I've ever owned

and I was really heartbroken to part with it.

And, of course, some people might say that simply by having

great painting not in a museum

but on the walls of your home, you probably ignore them.

What happens when you do live with beautiful paintings on your walls?

Well, you said a mouthful.

In fact, most of them you look at quite seldom.

But, of course, the moment you show it to someone or

a person like yourself comes to look who's fond of painting,

then you experience it all over again.

You know when you said to me that for every collection

-there was a theme, there was a certain family likeness.

-Yes.

What's the family likeness about this season's collection?

First of all, they are all mid-calf.

They are all much longer.

If I show you one,

they are cut on the bias.

The material is on the bias, you see?

You can see it very easily, because the print goes on the bias.

Still another one.

It means they hang differently, doesn't it?

And the material hangs completely...

It's a different approach to the silhouette,

because it gives.

You did say somewhere,

and I don't know whether

I quite understood you,

that's why I'd like to ask you about it now,

that truth and falsehood

cannot be dissociated from good and evil.

That's right.

Would you enlarge on that a little?

Well, people sometimes think

that a good action is one

about which you feel good.

But if I tell you a white lie about having

seen your husband in some place with

some man when I really saw him

with a girl, I'm doing you a kindness.

Now, I very much doubt that,

in general, scientists think that they are probably

doing you a kindness in the short run, but harm in the long run.

And it's in that sense that we have

to take a long, hard look at

good and evil

and truth and falsehood

and ask ourselves are we doing

good on those occasions where we

slide past the strict boundaries

between truth and falsehood?

This is the sort of letter that could get someone into trouble.

It contains an accusation against

an individual and it's anonymous.

It could go to the police, the immigration authorities,

Customs and Excise.

Members of the public are increasingly invited as

good citizens to help in the fight against crime.

In essence, they're being recruited to tell tales,

to snoop on their neighbours.

What lies at the heart of the matter is how far the public should

go in agreeing to spy for the authorities

and how far the authorities should go

in actively enlisting their help.

There's no mystery about what this is,

it's quite clearly a washbasin,

there are 15 of them round the central plinth

and there are 37 of them round the terrace.

What's more, they're actually plumbed in,

so that you can turn on the water,

there's specially shaped soap

and you can wash your hands.

And the water runs away into channels

which form themselves into the shape of two hands washing.

The question you might be forgiven for asking is, is this art?

Well, the sculptor, Sarah Bradpiece,

is at the next washbasin.

So, is it art?

It is art because I'm an artist.

If I say it's a work of art,

that makes it a work of art.

Yeah, but the word "work of art", you see,

is not so important for me.

I don't care about the word art

because it's been so, you know,

discredited in some way.

You said in the '20s, you proclaimed, "Art is dead."

It isn't, is it?

Yes, but that's what I meant by that, you see.

I meant it's dead by the fact

that instead of being singularized

in a little box like that,

so many artists in so many square feet,

by the fact that it would be universal.

It would be a human factor

in anyone's life to be an artist,

but not noticed as an artist.

Do you see what I mean?

Over the past decade, few artists have had such a monumental

influence on the world of modern art

as Muriel and Maddie.

The Sunday Times said of them "Their obscure genius,

"their sense of form and symmetry, is unsurpassed."

Others have called their work mindless, pornographic,

pretentious and total crap.

We have made this film so that you can judge for yourselves.

They have never given an interview before.

How would you describe your work?

Well, it's like an idea you get

and I think, "What is it, when is it, who is it?"

And as long as it's decadent and it's symmetrical,

then I call it art.

Ah!

Ah!

Aargh! Ah!

I spent all my life avoiding violence, so it's very hard

for someone like me to acknowledge that people really like violence.

They like watching it, they like taking part in it.

They don't mind if they get hurt.

And they seem to want more and more of it.

SHOTS FIRE

There's a good deal of evidence that women,

either by nurture or nature,

are less aggressive than men.

But if they're going to fight alongside men in combat battalions,

then they're going to have to match them for aggressiveness.

That means training themselves up to be every bit as fierce

and unyielding as male soldiers.

At that point, the debate focuses on whether society,

in the interest of equality,

should embark on a training that,

at least by traditional values, seems to fly in the face of nature.

SHOTS FIRE

'I've always hated guns myself.

'I duck in my seat when they come on the screen.

'So I've come along to try and discover their appeal.'

Coming in with a hatred of firearms, virtually,

and the terrible things that they do,

I can begin to experience

the kind of power you get there.

And the enormous adrenaline that... adrenaline rush.

That filmmaking career began with something called The Silver Chalice.

LAUGHTER

Now, I know you wince every time it's mentioned.

Perhaps we'd like your comments on that.

Well, the question is really a matter of survival.

I was grateful that I survived that.

It was nobody's fault,

it was just the worst film made

in the entire of the 1950s.

LAUGHTER

It was shown recently on American television, wasn't it?

Yes, and I took an ad in the LA Times...

LAUGHTER

..with a funereal wreath around it,

saying that I apologised every night at 8.30.

LAUGHTER

And everyone tuned in to find out what I was apologising for.

LAUGHTER

Well, television and films have

something in common, which the stage

doesn't share, which is that you, as an actor,

do get the opportunity to see your own performance.

What's that like as an experience?

Well, I think that, for me,

horrendous, because...

But, in a way, it's very fortunate that you never really see yourself.

There's always that something left to the imagination.

Jeremy Irons has been a working actor for 18 years now.

Currently, he's with the Royal Shakespeare Company

at Stratford-upon-Avon.

Shakespeare, always the big challenge, nothing more so

than Richard II, the indulgent,

easy-going king deposed by ambitious nobles.

'I'm always interested in the unknowable qualities'

in people.

And I find the most fascinating time in relationships is

getting to know a person.

I do feel that that is a fascinating journey

and if one can give that quality to a character, instead of saying,

"This is the sort of man it is, I must show it all,"

actually say, "But people aren't like that."

# Comrades, ye who have dared

# First in the battle

# To strive and sorrow

# Scorned, spurned

# Nought have ye cared

# Raising your eyes... #

You devoted the whole of your life to improving

the lot of women, not just politically, but socially, too.

So I wonder what you think of Women's Liberation today?

I think they've got a much more difficult job than I had,

because now it's a question of the change of mental attitude

and not a change of law

and that's far more difficult to get.

You went abroad to train as a soldier,

to lead the military wing,

to prepare guerrillas for the struggle.

Now, did that go against your former impulse

to be committed to non-violence?

Well, to resort to violence was a very agonising decision,

but because they were so committed to the struggle,

when I then decided to see

the leading ones one by one

and spend the whole day with them,

explaining just why it was

unavoidable in our situation,

we were able to get them to say,

"You have convinced us

"that there is a case for armed struggle in this country."

The possibility of there being life in other parts of the universe

has come a step nearer today with the announcement by a group

of scientists that they've discovered what may be

a planet around a far off star.

That star is Vega.

Just about now in the summer sky it's directly overhead,

the brightest star in the heavens.

Sir Alec Guinness flew into Nice yesterday and was escorted to

a luxury yacht in Cannes,

his home for the current 48 hours.

I talked to him earlier on the swaying deck of his yacht,

as the speedboats whizzed by.

Now let's talk about perhaps the most surprising role that

you've played recently - Star Wars.

Did it surprise you that it had

such a success and has become so legendary?

Well, of course. Except...

When the script arrived, I was in Hollywood.

I'd just finished, literally,

on the last day of a film

when the script arrived

and I thought, "Oh, George Lucas.

"That's a name to conjure with, in the avant-garde thing."

And then I opened it and saw it was science fiction

and I thought, "Not for me."

Started to read it and was held,

although the dialogue was appalling,

but there was something

about it which made you go on turning the pages.

I suppose the most imaginative area of your work

is in science fiction, children's science fiction, like Doctor Who.

Doctor Who is, by its nature,

a bit of a romp.

We mustn't scare the pants off the kids too much,

although we can take a certain degree in this direction.

Hello and welcome to the first in a new series of

What's It's All About?,

which is the quiz in which we ask

questions about Christianity, the Bible and all the major religions.

You may remember that last time

I put the questions to schoolchildren.

Now, in this series, I put the questions to

students from theological colleges and universities.

Off we go, fingers on buzzers.

Three of the four Gospels are known as Synoptic Gospels...

BUZZER

-Synoptics? ALL:

-Matthew, Mark, Luke.

Yes, not John.

Inside the mosque, as they requested, I wore a headscarf.

It's quite proper that I should do so

when I'm entering someone else's holy places

and it's also quite interesting to observe their traditions.

But out here, I rejoin the mainstream of British traditions,

where I can wear what I like

and read what books I like.

Until now, there were religions

to tell people,

"Don't do that, do that. Don't do that."

But now, religion is more or less...finished,

it's in the past.

Very few people are truly religious, truly.

To go to the Masses, not to be religious.

So, what is said to the people?

And maybe it's why violence is coming again.

-Were you ever truly religious yourself?

-No.

You've never had any need for it?

Until the age of 12, no more.

How do you feel about it now?

It's a question that...doesn't come to my mind. Never.

I wonder how it is that you retain such femininity.

Well, Joan...

Have a cuppa, darling.

-Oh, thank you.

-I retain my femininity very simply.

-Food. Food is the answer so often.

-Diet, you mean?

Well, not diet per se.

LAUGHTER

No, I mean food.

Did it emerge in our little chat, I'm not sure,

my son is a homoeopath.

Did you know that?

Where he would be without his parsnip juice, I don't know.

His skin, his skin is beautiful, darling,

it's marbled and translucent.

But, you know, he's taught me a thing or two

and I rely very much on organic beauty aids.

I pamper myself

with fruit and vegetables of all kinds,

particularly, you know, at retirement.

Have a sip of tea, for goodness' sake.

When I go to bed at night, guess what I do with a cucumber?

LAUGHTER

I don't eat it, Joan.

LAUGHTER

Apply it?

I apply it, you're right.

LAUGHTER

Now, I know that you have a very particular make-up,

your own make-up, which is known as yours.

How did this evolve?

People say that all

the clown's make-up is copyright,

but it's not correct.

It's not copyright at all, but it is like...

a gentleman's agreement.

A clown's make-up is like

a good tailor-made suit.

You say the make-up have to fit your face.

If it doesn't fit your face, the make-up's no good.

How dare, I wonder,

those Hollywood moguls

at the time when you first

went from New York to Hollywood suggest that

you couldn't be as sexy and glamorous as any other star?

Well, according to their standards, you see, I wasn't.

Now, this was really in the very beginning of talking pictures

and all of us who came out from the theatre

were not actressy kind of people.

We sort of had our own colour hair and maybe a couple of teeth crooked.

You know, they called me the "Little Brown Wren".

I thought I was fairly attractive until I got to Hollywood,

but I didn't for very long.

But you did have to fight off all their attempts to glamorise you

in their terms, didn't you?

Oh, yes.

Hepburn, Margaret Sullivan and I, were the three who really fought it.

You know, fought the...

Although, when I went to Warners', they made me bleach my hair.

I knew it was going to limit me with parts,

so I snuck down and had it put back to ash blonde.

One year later, Mr Warner sent for me and said,

"You've had your hair re-dyed."

One year later! He'd NEVER seen it!

But if I had gone for permission, he wouldn't have allowed it.

I didn't want to go through life with a very bleached head of hair.

The heat's really on, the temperature is in the 90s

and there's not a cloud in the sky.

It's just the sort of lazy holiday to give you

and the children a terrific tan, just as long as you're VERY careful.

One all.

Shirmer is the next word.

Joan.

Shirmer is a noun of assemblage or,

in language that you would understand,

a group noun.

One of those lovely, evocative words like pride of lions

and school of dolphins,

wisp of snipe, exultation of larks.

Shirmer, would you believe, of pilchards?

Not for a second!

Where does the element of entertainment come into this?

You said it's not easy to strike the right balance

between information and entertainment.

How would you define entertainment in television?

Yes, I didn't say that in relation to an interview,

I said it in relation to television journalism generally.

In relation to an interview, there's no difficulty at all,

because one never thinks about entertainment.

I assure you if you've got ten minutes

with a Cabinet minister and you have to discuss immigration,

defence, economics, and the political situation

and two or three other topics as well,

and you have about two or three minutes on that,

there's no time for entertainment.

Now, when you come to television,

do you find it an incomplete medium compared to stage?

Er, yes, I must confess it is.

In fact, for many,

many years I was very anti-television.

Obviously this was through lack of familiarity with it.

Do you feel that in television you don't get the opportunity

for real depth portrayal that you would get on the stage?

Ah, well, a depth portrayal obviously depends on the amount of

sensitivity in the actor, how deep he goes into the character,

and also how well the director has placed his cameras to pick up

the salient points which reveal that study.

Plonked for an assemblage noun. It sounds fairly rightish.

That was Joan. You've been plonked for. True or bluff?

Right!

APPLAUSE

Now Joan Bakewell presents Heart Of The Matter.

So, smacking for so long frowned on by child experts,

could once again take an approved place in bringing up a child.

What lies at the heart of the matter is what have parents to

make of it all?

To smack in the interest of law and order

or to use methods of upbringing

that focus more on the emotional needs of the child.

Schools, when their turn comes,

take up the responsibility for discipline.

I haven't often caned a boy and wished I hadn't.

You see, when a boy is face to face with

a punishment that he...

actually...doesn't much want to undergo,

then it brings him to a new understanding.

You know, it's like being

executed in the morning, it concentrates the mind.

Is there anything about your time at school that you really wish

had been avoided, any attitudes and...

You mean about the school, things that I would like to see changed.

A lot of things.

I think that, well, many of the taboos, the strange habits,

corporal punishment even the system of fagging,

none of these things really serve a purpose at all.

They aren't essential to Eton at all, I don't think.

Dr Spock, you say at the beginning of your new book

that you believe that man in Western society has lost his ideals

and the principles by which he lived.

So it seems appropriate to ask you

what ideals were built into your childhood

and the way you were brought up?

They were very stern ones.

Absolute sexual Puritanism,

must do the worthwhile thing,

must never care whether anybody approves of what you do

or don't do just as long as you know that it's morally right.

All through adolescence and youth, I was rebelling against this

and my stern mother, who was laying down these laws.

I ground my teeth all those years.

It's rather surprising and somewhat reluctantly that I swing around to

aligning up, pretty much, with my mother's ideals.

Does that mean that your parents disapproved of your ideas

when you published your baby book?

I was scared to death, of course, when my book was published

because, in a way, for a young man to write a book

on how to bring up children,

in a way, it's a reflection on his mother.

So I was very nervous as I waited to hear what she said.

She came to New York and I waited and waited and she finally

said, "Benny, I think it's quite sensible."

I thought this was the best review I could have possibly gotten from her.

I'm not sure she understood it all.

I understand that your,

in a sense, your parents were never reconciled to the fact that

you were an actor, they never quite approved, did they?

No, my mother approved, my father just,

he didn't accept the idea of being an actor,

my being an actor.

I think that's the reason he kept the hardware store

in operation,

because I'm pretty sure that he felt that I was going to be found out

sooner or later and he wanted to have a job for me to come back to.

But he, nonetheless, was quite pleased when you won an Oscar

because, didn't find it of use in his business?

Yes, the day...the night that I won the Oscar,

he called me very late

and said that he thought it was fine and that I should

send it back to the hardware store

and he'd put it on the knife counter.

LAUGHTER

And that's what I did and it stayed there for 20 years

under a cheese bell.

Is it true that your father took exception to Anatomy Of A Murder

and complained about it being filth?

Yes, he did.

He called me up and he said,

"What's this I hear about you making a dirty picture?"

And er...

..he not only wouldn't go to see it when it came to Indiana,

he put an ad in the Indiana Evening Gazette

telling people not to go and see it.

Sir Kenneth Clark, in an essay that you wrote about your childhood,

you said that you were brought up in a rich,

sporting and Philistine atmosphere.

It's not the sort of background that one imagines you would have had.

What was it like?

I found it, as I said in that essay, I found it very agreeable.

I was an only child.

Only children are supposed to be lonely and unhappy,

I was extremely happy.

I was very largely neglected by my parents.

I didn't mind that at all.

I was looked after by a divine Scottish governess.

And that's all I asked.

If Britain can spend £786 million developing Concorde,

which has carried only a quarter of a million people so far,

how much money should we be investing in theatre and dance,

painting, sculpture, music, literature,

that's there for all 56 million of us, in Britain alone, to enjoy?

And will the state

and the private investor be willing to put money into

odd, even eccentric, ideas?

MUSIC: "Money, Money, Money" by Abba

# I work all night I work all day

# To pay the bills I have to pay

# Ain't it sad? #

A cup of tea, dear?

I think that would be very pleasant.

What we need is a private patron with

a lot of money, like Samuel Courtauld in the old days,

or if one goes far enough back, the Medici and people like that.

They had money and taste.

And the danger, of course, of the public commission

is it's decided by a committee,

and the committee's very apt to choose

the safe or the mediocre painting rather than the imaginative one.

Not always, but there is that danger and that's what one's up against.

I know that artists become artists for very personal reasons, and I

also appreciate that art's important to society for it spiritual values,

but it seems to me also there's a case to be made for the way in which

the people who work in the arts earn a great deal for this country.

It may happen, but it's not the reason, it's not the...

It's not the purpose.

I mean, the purpose of art is not,

er, to live at all, I mean, it's not making a living.

For me, the arts are to make people enjoy

and appreciate the world much more than they might do without them.

# A little white duck went screaming up the lake this morning

# A little white duck went screaming up the lake this morning

# Well, a little white duck went screaming up the lake

# Got ate up by a big black drake

# Old Bill Rolling Pin this morning. #

Mable Hillery, what's the story, Old Bill Rolling Pin,

what's the story behind that song?

I learned this song from a lady named Bessie Jones.

And, Old Bill Rolling Pin means "patteroller".

And "patteroller" in slaving means that there was men riding horses.

And if you went from one plantation to the other

without a pass,

you would get tied to the whipping block and whipped.

-And that's who Old Bill Rolling Pin was?

-Yeah.

This is the big one, the £2 million musical,

the costliest show that London has ever seen

and now with Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and Cats behind him

Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of the world's top talents.

Tonight he has three shows running on Broadway

and four running in London.

We're not allowed to spoil the surprise with an extract

directly from the show,

but we can catch its flavour

and its sound as Jeff Daniel sings his song AC/DC.

# I am electric Feel my attraction

# Feel my magnetism

# You will agree

# I am electric I have the contact

# I am electric The future is me... #

And some people of talent are here with me tonight.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, great congratulations,

not just on the show, I understand.

Thank you. It's my birthday today.

And not just your birthday.

I got married again a couple of days ago.

Anyway... I'll keep quiet.

Did the show go well tonight, were you pleased with it?

For a preview, and for a charity preview, which is normally the night

that you cancel because charity audiences have paid so much money

that they always get so worried about things, it was sensational.

But I don't trust anything until we actually open in front of the press.

And now from the Apollo, Victoria back to the studio.

Well it's a didgeridoo that is a basic rhythmic

instrument of Australia, isn't it? Do you use this in your...?

I use it in the act actually.

This is the shortest most playable one. Listen to this sound.

LOW RUMBLING SOUND

Is that in a different key from this one?

Yeah, the longer they are, the deeper they get.

This is a fairly high one, this is a B flat.

What about that for a lovely sound?

It's used for luring young maidens out into the bush, this one.

Shepherd's Bush! Sorry. No, forget that.

The music plays on, we dance under the stars, everyone has a good time.

The evening to remember on a holiday all the family will remember.

# ..Espana por favor. #

Sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll are popularly seen as the defining

characteristics of the 1960s,

and, fair enough, there was more and more of them about.

But something much more profound was happening,

sweeping new legislation that would liberalise

the whole of society was on the way.

And my generation, we were all for it.

This phrase, the father of the permissive generation,

it's been used both in praise and in blame.

But, in either case, it suggests that you liberated

a whole generation to do exactly what they wanted.

I understand that you think that's a gross misinterpretation.

I certainly do.

In fact, I would say, most modern parents reading the book

will say to you confidentially,

"As a matter of fact, it's a little bit old-fashioned

"with its emphasis on firm parental leadership."

I didn't think of myself as a permissivist.

I've always objected strongly to brattish children

or even children with thoughtlessness

in relation to adults.

I was always pleased that my children were considered charming

by our friends.

For me, the big change concerns pornography,

once confined to seedy back rooms

down dark alleys. Not any more.

Porn is out in the open, in bright shops unafraid to declare its trade.

It's not a trend I like, but then, I don't like porn.

I think sex on display is crude and silly.

But I wouldn't campaign to close it down.

-So this is...

-Women's inflatable doll.

-This is a man. Oh, dear.

-That's a man.

-He's not my type.

-With his cock.

-And he inflates, does he?

-Yes, he does.

And there's his arse, and there we are.

I know that the penetration shot is the one that fascinates people most.

Mmm.

That the entry of the penis into the female body really gets to people.

Why do think that? It's strange, isn't it?

-When you're really close up, it's meat, isn't it?

-Mmm.

It's not particularly pretty.

It's not... It may... I don't know if I'd agree with that.

-I think a lot of people do find it good to look at.

-Oh, people dressed.

And he's wearing a tie. That's a surprise!

MUSIC: "Eton Boating Song"

# And a hay harvest breeze

# Blade on the feather... #

MASTER CALLS NAMES: ..Beatty, Belmajor, Bennett, Bosworth, Baring,

Bridge Minor...

Here's a quote from the headmaster of Marlborough.

"Moribund class distinctions are being given artificial

"respiration by our educational system." Mr Amery?

I think he's talking a lot of rot, if you ask me.

Do you think you might have been in the Cabinet

-if you had been a grammar school boy?

-Who can tell?

Jocelyn Stevens, when you came down from Cambridge,

was being an old Etonian a help in getting your first job?

It's a slightly unfair question because I went to work for my

uncle and I probably would have been able to anyway, I should think.

But I would say that in the newspaper world,

being an old Etonian is a positive disadvantage,

simply because there's a certain amateur

reputation about Etonians,

a slightly cavalier image of not taking

anything very seriously and not being really in need of a job.

-What was it that made Classics your choice?

-Ah!

It was the only thing I knew when I was young.

It's the only thing I learnt at school,

where I didn't really like it.

But then I was away from school with the war,

and in France, especially in the winter of 1917/18,

nice German dugout we had and I read Greek and Latin.

Nobody minded, they were very friendly.

The result was, when I came up to university in 1919,

I had read quite a lot.

And this was, well...less of the sort. Then I fell in love with it.

Did you expect to spend 50 years of your life studying it?

Certainly not. Oh, no, not then.

Joan Bakewell, what are your thoughts?

I think we're about to see an evacuation of people

from poorer backgrounds giving up on universities.

I just think they'll think it's not worth that kind of debt,

that kind of debt is huge if you've got a very low income,

and you know, debt is something that this country has learned to be

wary about, it's really bad to get, lumber yourself with debt, and I...

-People are right to be wary.

-Even the squeezed middles. I see this

undermining what the university chances of my own grandchildren.

BABY CRIES

What about a husband being present during the delivery of a baby?

We approve of husbands being present during the delivery of a baby.

But husbands who are educated for their job.

We don't believe in the passive husband who sits there

and watches but the husband who actively works with his wife

and is educated to understand

what she's doing and what he can do

to help his wife and to share the experience with her.

-Should he go to classes with her?

-He doesn't go to classes with her

but we have a special fathers' evening,

during which he is educated to know what to do.

Should women have babies after the menopause?

That is the latest moral dilemma to arise now that

scientific development has made it possible.

First comes the technology.

Remember the shock when the first test-tube baby was created?

Now, in vitro fertilisation is widely seen as acceptable

for people with problems of infertility.

But pioneering medical research hasn't stopped there.

Today, women formally thought of as past child bearing,

can be given a donor egg from a younger woman

and have a late baby.

That raises ethical issues about what is fair for the child,

the family and for society at large.

Today, young people turn a critical and responsible eye

on the world around them.

They see so much of the world. They watch its wars, its famines,

its suffering on television so naturally

their poems and songs tend to be dominated by these serious subjects

but not always treated seriously.

Here is a song that's about overpopulation.

# Population is exploding

# Soon there won't be any space

# Mother Earth is overloading

# With the good old human race... #

The Rushdie affair awoke us belatedly to the fact that for

some people traditional British law didn't quite do the job any more.

There is no longer a single morality, no single god,

no longer a single taboo.

There's no national voice,

but a cacophony of different sensibilities.

The Broadcasting Standards Council publishes an occasional

list of the words considered most offensive by the public.

But over the recent years, politically-incorrect words

referring to race and religion have gone up the list.

Ah, this is the dress. Yes, let's stop it there.

Right, let me ask you, would you immediately recognise that

that dress was carrying a verse from the Koran?

Yes.

Apparently the word for God, which is in the Koran,

is on the left breast of the dress.

-Is that blasphemy?

-Yes, it would be. It would be for us.

Anyone who violates or vilifies, in a way,

anything that is to do with our god

and whom we believe in,

then definitely, that is blasphemy for us.

Tell me about Spitting Image, I mean,

is there anything still sacred?

Would you put, let me say, Jesus Christ?

Well, there was a suggestion to have Christ on the Wogan Show,

in which Christ appears and Terry...

Who was the interviewer?

Terry appeared and said, "Do you like my suit?

"And would you like to touch my knee?"

and offered him a cup of coffee and had a self-centred interview.

Now that was I think considered at board level too offensive.

Are you fearful that your material will offend?

It's good to offend people. It makes them think.

I just want Muslims to lighten up.

Even the Taliban must laugh. God knows what at.

They must laugh at something.

Is there a limit? Are there things you couldn't say?

No, I don't think there's any limits.

There is nothing that can't be joked about.

-Do you think you're a racist, Bernard?

-No, I'm not a racist, no.

But you ran into a lot of trouble, didn't you,

when political correct language came in and you started...

Everybody has, everybody has. You've got to watch

your Ps and Qs, but I don't, I mean, it doesn't make any difference.

But the whole idea was that certain groups of people who

were less advantaged, shall we say, blacks and so on, whom you

call niggers and other groups who you were rude about, you were

reinforcing stereotypes that were preventing sort of social equality.

No, I don't call anybody niggers now, them days are gone.

So, you've changed your vocabulary?

I would use it if I wanted to use it. I just don't want to use it.

Why don't you?

-Why don't I?

-What's changed?

Well, I can say a black man.

Jackanory. On BBC One this afternoon, it started another series

of the traditional negro tales of Brer Fox

and Brer Rabbit.

When the tales were first published in 1880, they were told

by a lovable old darkie called Uncle Remus,

to the young son of the family on whose southern plantation

he lived and worked.

Today, the Uncle Remus framework was scrapped

and the stories were told by George Browne,

actor, singer and musician who comes from Trinidad.

How do you feel about these books when you see them

in the library or in bookshops?

Really terrible.

Are there any equivalents of Little Black Sambo

in negro society, where the white man figures rather badly

and is treated with contempt?

No, not at all. The only legend I know of

where the white man figured badly

is a legend we have in Trinidad.

It's about a bamboo patch - the bamboo grow wild in Trinidad.

If you should come across a bamboo flower

when you pick it, a white man will appear

and offer you all sorts of money.

It really is the devil.

Can you deduce from the look of a building

the gender of its creator?

The old cliche has it that curves, domes and such are female

and that spires and towers are male,

for obvious reasons.

In which case this tall, arrogant, powerful building

would have been created by a man.

In fact, it was created by a woman.

But what a woman.

More than anything,

Bess was a brilliant architectural tactician.

Even her staircase, as impressive a piece of architectural stage setting

as you could devise,

forced the most noble visitor into a supplicant state.

Only after a long and seemingly endless assent to the second floor,

would visitors at last encounter their host.

While outside, perhaps her most arrogant gesture of all,

her initials - ES for Elizabeth Shrewsbury -

proclaimed from the rooftop that this is her building alone.

Barbara Castle, the ladies invited to the Punch lunch

were invited by William Davis in the hope that they would contribute

womanly articles

to an edition of Punch edited by him.

It turns out that you have taken over as editor.

How did that come about?

I think it was a piece of spontaneous combustion.

Combustion was the word.

I've never been in a room full of more united and indignant females

when we suddenly realised that we had been lured,

decoyed to this lunch

in order to serve the purposes of a male editor of Punch's idea

of how to exploit women journalistically.

We just said, "We're not having it."

I'm all for women's rights but I think that

it's a separate thing, this matter of women being encouraged

to think that they are the same as men

and that to get gratification out of life,

they must get it in exactly the same way men do.

Feminists are entitled to say, "It doesn't matter

"what you think."

I think they are right. Maybe I was wrong to even bring this out.

You've come under quite an attack in America, haven't you?

I have. I'm bruised. I'm covered from bruises from

grim women feminists!

I don't know how the Women's Liberation Movement

is spreading here but it's spreading like wildfire.

It isn't just the fierce, extremist women.

They are persuading very sensible, non-aggressive women.

Let's think over the injustices that women suffer under.

APPLAUSE

It seems to me that this is a typical macho,

head-to-head, male, aggressive conflict.

What is wrong with these people? Why do they not get together

go to arbitration and compromise in perhaps the way,

as Harriet Harman suggested,

if there were more women managing these organisations?

APPLAUSE

You spent many years as a child living in Suffolk

And you wrote of that time

that as a child, the horses you saw there,

the Suffolk Punches,

gave you your first aesthetic sense

of sculptural beauty.

I'll tell you the very first.

It was in the Japanese exhibition in...White City.

It was an enormous exhibition. 1910 it must have been.

The Japanese had sent some of their finest screens,

things they've never exported since.

I remember then -

I was only seven years old, eight years old -

feeling I was in a different world

of experience, that the things of before were trash

and that these things were somehow marvellous.

And I wanted to go on looking at them.

The 6th Duke, the Bachelor Duke, as he's known,

was a great connoisseur.

What kind of a man was he?

Completely charming, all the way through.

Whether you read about him or whether you read his own writings,

where his own personality comes through,

he just adored this place.

All these different pieces, chosen for the places they now stand?

I think so.

I think he was quite a rash buyer.

I think he bought things he loved and then found somewhere to put it.

What is interesting is that they reflect

the contemporary art of his day.

It's hard to think of this as contemporary art, isn't it?

He keeps on about modern sculptures

and here's his idea of a modern sculpture.

It's not exactly ours, is it?!

He commissioned this from Canova?

Yes. This was his great prize that he loved beyond anything.

He was in ecstasy when it arrived.

Do you think that's pretty?

It does it for me, yeah.

-From a...

-What does it do for you?

At the moment it just means I know I've got a good shot.

-You can still see it.

-Why do people want to look at that?

Masturbatory purposes, I fear.

Primarily.

It's not very appealing to my aesthetic sense.

It looks a bit athletic.

From a male point of view,

-that appeals to my aesthetic sense unbelievably!

-Not aesthetic!

-That's just...

-Beautiful. It's perfect. Look at that!

It's perfectly formed.

Delicious bottom.

Not a stretch mark or a crease or a blemish on it anywhere.

No, that's true. That's true.

Almost callipygian, we could say.

Not that big.

This is a mighty molar.

Considerably larger than life.

But it shows us very clearly...

There's the crown of the tooth.

That's the part you can see in the mouth.

But like an iceberg, underneath it is a very much longer root

or roots for a back tooth,

which holds it in the jawbone

and keeps it in place.

Let's pretend to cut it in half

and see it in a section.

You can see how it's made up then. This crown

is covered by a comparatively thin layer

of a terribly hard substance called enamel.

You are a scientist who understands the world of the poet

and a man of letters yourself - you've written biography

and poetry too. Is it possible

for the poet to look into the scientist's world

in the same way?

Yes, it is but we don't, in general, have the vocabulary

for it yet.

I think a generation or two will mend this.

I think a lot of poets are working at it now.

The two worlds are not dissonant in this respect.

It's quite a simple thing. I can put it to you

in the simplest terms, since I'm interested in education.

I've made all my children do a lot of science

before they've gone on to literature because

if they know the vocabulary of science,

then they can do literature.

But if they start by doing literature,

they'll never read a paper by Bragg again.

I've come along to look at my own brainwaves.

And see whether that indicates anything about creativity.

'Dr John Gruzelier

'is Professor of Psychology at Imperial College in London.

'Since 1999, he's been studying brain activity

'in creative people. His latest work

'suggests that our capacity for creative thinking

'is at its most potent when we have an elevated level

'of brainwaves running at four to eight cycles per second.

'What neuroscientists call "the theta state".

'Contrary to expectations, it's the elderly

'that find it easier to attain the theta state.

'Could this explain the phenomenon of autumn flowering?'

GERMAN SONG PLAYS

SONG SUNG IN GERMAN

People over 60 quite often have special holiday needs -

nothing too energetic, nothing too costly.

Some of them are quite definitely looking for friendship,

all of them want entertainments

that are keyed to their particular tastes.

Well, here in Great Yarmouth,

lots of people over 60 are finding exactly what they want.

They come here in ones, twos,

and quite often in groups to enjoy it all.

MUSIC: "Have I Got News For You Theme"

At least two-thirds of the benefit money

goes to older, retired people.

So it's your fault!

LAUGHTER

For being old?!

Look, time to strip the pensioners of all those freebies!

For example, we just... >

Not at all! Good heavens above.

Do you want to hear what they would say in the home counties?

We have worked all our lives

and we deserve the reward in our older years.

Life is time.

-We only have a lifespan.

-Yeah.

Do you have any sense of that rolling out before you?

I'm not prepared to think about it.

You don't want to think about it?

No. Do you think about it?

Quite a bit.

-Hmm.

-Are you fearful of it?

Well, it's the last adventure.

Maybe it's the first.

This is a typical first-century tomb.

It's dripping, it's pretty deep in water and it's pretty smelly.

Here, archaeologists would have me

believe I've got just about as close as I could get to the tomb of Jesus.

'For many Christians,

'this is the place where the mystery of the Resurrection occurred.'

Polly Toynbee, Resurrection is spoken of as the focus

of Christianity and its hope for the future.

What's your reaction to it?

It's the part of Christianity that I find the very hardest

and the part that I dislike most,

because I think it's selling people false goods, I think it's not

true, I think it's very important that people should come to terms

with the idea that life is what we've got, this is all there is.

Make the best of it, understand its beginning, its middle and its end.

And that for as long as you sell people an impossible dream

that it goes on later somewhere else in some better place,

people will fail to get to grips with the real nature of life as it is.

Alabaster tombs in Derbyshire can be monumental, beautiful, impressive.

They can also be quite eerie.

Look at them. They're like chrysalis

waiting to be transformed into great butterflies.

The life after death?

That's what intrigues me about all tombs -

the fact that they establish an identity here on earth,

but they also tell us we all have to face

the great and quiet sleep of death.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd