0:00:04 > 0:00:06London 2012.
0:00:07 > 0:00:11The Olympic Games had come to Britain
0:00:11 > 0:00:12and the eyes of the world were eagerly
0:00:12 > 0:00:15trained on the capital's new Olympic Park.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23The Opening Ceremony was billed as a showcase
0:00:23 > 0:00:25for the very best of British.
0:00:25 > 0:00:27There was only one small problem, though -
0:00:27 > 0:00:29nobody really knew what that meant.
0:00:32 > 0:00:36A century and a half earlier, at the height of our power
0:00:36 > 0:00:40and prestige, we had put on the Great Exhibition of 1851 -
0:00:40 > 0:00:43a celebration of our manufacturing might.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48In Hyde Park, the Victorians built a vast glass
0:00:48 > 0:00:51and steel structure, the Crystal Palace,
0:00:51 > 0:00:54and filled it with the glories of British industry.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58But by 2012, much of our industrial base was gone.
0:00:58 > 0:01:01So what did we have left to boast about?
0:01:03 > 0:01:06The Opening Ceremony threatened to be a fiasco
0:01:06 > 0:01:08played out on a global stage.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12But it wasn't.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15Instead, it was a celebration of Britain like never before.
0:01:19 > 0:01:20And the reason?
0:01:22 > 0:01:24We may have lost our colonial empire
0:01:24 > 0:01:28and our industrial supremacy but there is one thing, I think,
0:01:28 > 0:01:32that we do better than anyone else on the planet -
0:01:32 > 0:01:33popular culture.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40And that is precisely what the Opening Ceremony celebrated.
0:01:41 > 0:01:43# People try to put us d-down
0:01:43 > 0:01:46# Talkin' 'bout my generation... #
0:01:46 > 0:01:49It's extraordinary to think that one British writer, JK Rowling,
0:01:49 > 0:01:52has sold more than 400 million books...
0:01:54 > 0:01:56..that Doctor Who is watched in almost every country
0:01:56 > 0:01:59in the Western world,
0:01:59 > 0:02:02that James Bond has been the central character
0:02:02 > 0:02:05in the longest-running film series in history,
0:02:05 > 0:02:07that the Beatles are still the bestselling musical
0:02:07 > 0:02:10group of all time
0:02:10 > 0:02:11and that only Shakespeare
0:02:11 > 0:02:14and the Bible have sold more books than Agatha Christie.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23To put it simply, no other country on Earth, relative to its size,
0:02:23 > 0:02:27has contributed more to the modern imagination.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30This is the story of how we went from being a country that
0:02:30 > 0:02:34made things to a country that makes culture
0:02:34 > 0:02:37and from an empire that spanned a quarter of the globe
0:02:37 > 0:02:39to an empire of the imagination.
0:02:41 > 0:02:43# Talkin' 'bout my generation
0:02:43 > 0:02:44# This is my generation
0:02:44 > 0:02:45# Talkin' 'bout my generation
0:02:45 > 0:02:48# This is my generation. #
0:03:02 > 0:03:05So, British culture. Where do you start?
0:03:08 > 0:03:11What about with a group of lads from Birmingham who decided
0:03:11 > 0:03:14that their lives should be different?
0:03:16 > 0:03:21The future laid out for them was one of hard labour and industrial grit,
0:03:21 > 0:03:23a life in the steelworks.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30Since Victorian times,
0:03:30 > 0:03:33Birmingham had been the beating heart of British industry...
0:03:34 > 0:03:38..its products bought and sold all over the world.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42- Let's go.- Come on, then!
0:03:42 > 0:03:43But by the late 1960s,
0:03:43 > 0:03:46life for these lads was looking a lot bleaker.
0:03:49 > 0:03:54- ARCHIVE:- The iron trade is a dying industry. It's dying out.
0:03:56 > 0:04:00The lads leaving school now, they won't entertain it.
0:04:00 > 0:04:01They won't have it.
0:04:03 > 0:04:08Nowhere suffered more from the brutal collapse of British manufacturing
0:04:08 > 0:04:10than the West Midlands.
0:04:10 > 0:04:12But out of the ashes of our industrial heritage
0:04:12 > 0:04:15there emerged something entirely new
0:04:15 > 0:04:17because in the late 1960s,
0:04:17 > 0:04:22Birmingham began to forge a very different kind of metal.
0:04:29 > 0:04:34In 1965, the 17-year-old Tony Iommi was working his last day
0:04:34 > 0:04:36at the local steelworks.
0:04:38 > 0:04:40A keen amateur guitarist,
0:04:40 > 0:04:44he had decided to give up manual labour for a life in music.
0:04:45 > 0:04:49But as he was loading a sheet of metal into the steel press,
0:04:49 > 0:04:52he momentarily lost concentration,
0:04:52 > 0:04:56and in that instant, he brought the full weight of the industrial
0:04:56 > 0:05:01machinery down on the middle two fingers of his right hand.
0:05:09 > 0:05:11For Iommi, it was a disaster.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15He was left-handed and he'd just severed two of his fretting fingers.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21Undeterred, he made his own leather thimbles and played on.
0:05:23 > 0:05:26It was a moment that changed the future of popular music...
0:05:29 > 0:05:32# What is this
0:05:32 > 0:05:37# That stands before me? #
0:05:37 > 0:05:42..because Iommi became the lead guitarist of Black Sabbath.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46Like the other members of Black Sabbath and, I suspect,
0:05:46 > 0:05:51most youngsters in the West Midlands, Tony Iommi felt little affinity
0:05:51 > 0:05:57with the hippyish, peace and love, flower-power side of the 1960s.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01He'd grown up in a world of blast furnaces and steam hammers.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04Heavy metal was, quite literally, in the air.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08MUSIC: NIB by Black Sabbath
0:06:08 > 0:06:09# Oh, yeah!
0:06:14 > 0:06:17# Follow me now and you will not regret
0:06:19 > 0:06:23# Leaving the life you led before we met... #
0:06:23 > 0:06:28And what he wanted was to make music that reflected his daily reality -
0:06:28 > 0:06:33the din and the sweat and the grit of life in industrial Birmingham -
0:06:33 > 0:06:35the workshop of the world.
0:06:40 > 0:06:44With its roots in the forges and foundries of our industrial past,
0:06:44 > 0:06:48Black Sabbath pioneered a louder, deeper, heavier sound...
0:06:51 > 0:06:52# Oh, yeah! #
0:06:53 > 0:06:56..and they would prove irresistibly influential...
0:06:56 > 0:07:00# If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man
0:07:00 > 0:07:04# You win some, lose some, it's all the same to me... #
0:07:04 > 0:07:05..from Motorhead...
0:07:07 > 0:07:08..to Metallica.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13Heavy metal has become a global musical phenomenon,
0:07:13 > 0:07:17thrilling audiences around the world from Solihull to Shanghai.
0:07:19 > 0:07:20I really enjoy it
0:07:20 > 0:07:25and you forget about the rest of your troubles and that.
0:07:25 > 0:07:28Just gets you going, really. I mean, you start head-banging
0:07:28 > 0:07:29and you're feeling OK.
0:07:30 > 0:07:32In the 2011 Census,
0:07:32 > 0:07:36more than 6,000 people even listed it as their religion.
0:07:41 > 0:07:45Black Sabbath's blend of industrial clamour and Satanic fantasy
0:07:45 > 0:07:50has seen the band sell some 70 million records worldwide.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52MUSIC: Paranoid by Black Sabbath
0:07:52 > 0:07:54# People think I'm insane
0:07:54 > 0:07:58# Because I am frowning all the time... #
0:07:58 > 0:08:02Their most recent album went to number one in 14 countries.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08Heavy metal could only have been born in Britain.
0:08:08 > 0:08:12It came screaming and shrieking out of a place that, for more than
0:08:12 > 0:08:16a century, had rung to the din of iron and steel.
0:08:16 > 0:08:20The great irony, though, is that Black Sabbath came banging
0:08:20 > 0:08:23and crashing onto the scene at the very moment
0:08:23 > 0:08:28when the great forges and foundries were beginning to close their doors.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31And perhaps that is no coincidence.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40It was only as Britain's industrial, political
0:08:40 > 0:08:43and military power started to wane that we began to see
0:08:43 > 0:08:46ourselves as entertainers to the world.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53Yet much of our popular culture represents a reckoning with
0:08:53 > 0:08:57the industrial and imperial greatness that we had and we lost.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03The story of our culture, like the Industrial Revolution,
0:09:03 > 0:09:06is one of different parts of our country
0:09:06 > 0:09:09specialising in different kinds of products.
0:09:09 > 0:09:13And at its heart is exactly the same spirit of invention
0:09:13 > 0:09:15and entrepreneurship.
0:09:17 > 0:09:21It's that same spirit that drove men like Matthew Boulton
0:09:21 > 0:09:28and James Watt - the pioneers whose steam engine transformed their age.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31These industrial revolutionaries, as well as their Victorian
0:09:31 > 0:09:37successors, lived in a world of innovation, marketing and money.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41I don't think we've ever really lost that ethos, that creative,
0:09:41 > 0:09:43entrepreneurial instinct.
0:09:43 > 0:09:47And in that sense, perhaps, we all still live in Victorian Britain.
0:09:57 > 0:09:59Please, sir. I want some more.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04- What?- What?- What?
0:10:04 > 0:10:05Ask for more?
0:10:08 > 0:10:11If you look and listen hard enough, you begin to hear
0:10:11 > 0:10:16the ghosts of our Victorian past echoing through our popular culture.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22And often, that's been down to the outlook of the individuals
0:10:22 > 0:10:27who shaped it or, perhaps more accurately, manufactured it.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32Today, most of us associate the name J Arthur Rank
0:10:32 > 0:10:36with black and white films on wet Sunday afternoons.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39But, you know, Rank wasn't actually a film-maker.
0:10:39 > 0:10:41He was, in fact, a miller.
0:10:41 > 0:10:46But in the 1930s and 1940s, it was this unassuming Yorkshire
0:10:46 > 0:10:50miller who became the saviour of Britain's film industry.
0:11:01 > 0:11:06For Rank, the very embodiment of the Victorian industrialist,
0:11:06 > 0:11:09the film industry was just that - an industry.
0:11:12 > 0:11:17Rank saw culture as a commodity like any other, something that was
0:11:17 > 0:11:20manufactured, packaged and sold.
0:11:20 > 0:11:23His mills may have fed the nation
0:11:23 > 0:11:26but he dreamed of giving people cultural sustenance,
0:11:26 > 0:11:30something to lift up their hearts and elevate their minds.
0:11:32 > 0:11:35But there was an obstacle in the way of Rank's dream,
0:11:35 > 0:11:37and that obstacle was America.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45Before the Second World War, American films
0:11:45 > 0:11:48accounted for 80% of British screen time,
0:11:48 > 0:11:52earning 50 million a year from British cinema-goers.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59But this wasn't just about the money.
0:11:59 > 0:12:04In the summer of 1945, the head of Britain's new Arts Council,
0:12:04 > 0:12:09the economist John Maynard Keynes, made a radio address to the nation
0:12:09 > 0:12:13and in it he made no bones about his underlying ambitions.
0:12:15 > 0:12:18'Let every part of merry England be merry in its own way.
0:12:18 > 0:12:20'And death to Hollywood!'
0:12:20 > 0:12:23Death to Hollywood! For people
0:12:23 > 0:12:26like Keynes, Britain's youngsters weren't just talking American...
0:12:26 > 0:12:29If you think you're going to make a plough-jockey out of me,
0:12:29 > 0:12:30you've got another think coming!
0:12:30 > 0:12:33..they were dressing American, walking American,
0:12:33 > 0:12:36even thinking American.
0:12:36 > 0:12:40And all this raised the ghastly prospect that, very soon, we would
0:12:40 > 0:12:46merely be a remote colonial outpost of a great American cultural empire.
0:12:52 > 0:12:56Rank fervently believed that Britain had everything it needed
0:12:56 > 0:13:00to take on Hollywood and reassert good old British values.
0:13:01 > 0:13:03And at the end of the war, he proved it.
0:13:09 > 0:13:14In 1944, Rank brought Laurence Olivier's Henry V to the screen
0:13:14 > 0:13:16in glorious Technicolor.
0:13:20 > 0:13:23Once more unto the breach,
0:13:23 > 0:13:27dear friends, once more, or close the wall up with our English dead.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30The story goes that Henry V was
0:13:30 > 0:13:33commissioned by Winston Churchill as a way of rallying
0:13:33 > 0:13:37the nation's morale for the long struggle against the Nazis.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41But the film also chimed perfectly with Rank's dream of packaging
0:13:41 > 0:13:46and selling patriotic high culture for a mass audience.
0:13:46 > 0:13:50And what better way to take on Hollywood than with the help
0:13:50 > 0:13:54of England's greatest playwright and Britain's finest actor?
0:13:54 > 0:13:56And teach them how to war.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58And you, good yeoman, whose limbs were made in England,
0:13:58 > 0:14:01show us here the mettle of your pasture.
0:14:01 > 0:14:03Henry V took the American box office by storm.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06'For there is none of you so mean and base,
0:14:06 > 0:14:07'that hath not noble lustre...'
0:14:07 > 0:14:08Time magazine called it
0:14:08 > 0:14:12"one of the great experiences in the history of motion pictures".
0:14:12 > 0:14:14The game's afoot.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17Follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry,
0:14:17 > 0:14:22"God for Harry, England, and Saint George!"
0:14:22 > 0:14:25- ALL:- God for Harry, England, and Saint George!
0:14:25 > 0:14:28This could have been Rank's own rallying cry
0:14:28 > 0:14:31and it inspired some remarkably bull-headed rhetoric.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35- ARCHIVE:- Another warmly-appreciated speech came from that champion
0:14:35 > 0:14:37of British films, Mr Rank.
0:14:37 > 0:14:42As an exhibitor, I know today that you can make more money
0:14:42 > 0:14:44out of British pictures than any other pictures.
0:14:46 > 0:14:50Strong words, indeed, but Rank was convinced that the formula
0:14:50 > 0:14:54for success was to establish a quintessentially British brand,
0:14:54 > 0:14:58one which relied on British talent, British heritage
0:14:58 > 0:15:00and British history.
0:15:03 > 0:15:08And in the late 1940s, he bankrolled some of the greatest films ever made
0:15:08 > 0:15:10from The Red Shoes
0:15:10 > 0:15:13and Great Expectations to A Matter Of Life And Death.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19- ARCHIVE:- But it is in connection with the film organisation
0:15:19 > 0:15:21employing over 32,000 men and women
0:15:21 > 0:15:25that the name of J Arthur Rank has achieved worldwide recognition,
0:15:25 > 0:15:28carrying the name of Britain to the farthest corners of the earth
0:15:28 > 0:15:30through the medium of British film.
0:15:31 > 0:15:33But despite his successes,
0:15:33 > 0:15:37Rank himself never seemed entirely comfortable in the film world.
0:15:39 > 0:15:41Even when Rank went to Hollywood,
0:15:41 > 0:15:45he remained very much the stoical Victorian industrialist.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49At one press conference in 1947, an American reporter was
0:15:49 > 0:15:53so frustrated by Rank's silence that he asked him,
0:15:53 > 0:15:57"Is it true, Mr Rank, that you are dumb?"
0:15:57 > 0:16:02And there was a long pause and then Rank said, "No, just dull."
0:16:06 > 0:16:11Sadly, for all his efforts, this God-fearing Yorkshireman
0:16:11 > 0:16:14just couldn't compete with the vast Hollywood machine.
0:16:17 > 0:16:19But what he created was a formula
0:16:19 > 0:16:24that became one of the great mainstays of our post-war culture.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28Above all, Rank had discovered that, on the cultural front,
0:16:28 > 0:16:33Britishness and British history were our greatest assets.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36This would become our brand
0:16:36 > 0:16:40and, in the long run, it would fundamentally change not just
0:16:40 > 0:16:45how other people thought about us, but how we thought about ourselves.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50'This is BBC television. It's one o'clock.'
0:16:55 > 0:16:59In 1964, the BBC's flagship sports programme,
0:16:59 > 0:17:03Grandstand, featured a rather unusual item.
0:17:04 > 0:17:08Well, now, in just a few minutes, a Boeing 707 is due to arrive
0:17:08 > 0:17:11from New York and carrying it, er... carrying in it
0:17:11 > 0:17:14four remarkable young men from Liverpool.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16FANS SCREAM
0:17:16 > 0:17:18And this is the moment they've been waiting for -
0:17:18 > 0:17:22Paul McCartney leading them off, George Harrison on the left,
0:17:22 > 0:17:25John Lennon, at the back, Ringo Starr.
0:17:25 > 0:17:27FANS SCREAM
0:17:27 > 0:17:32The Beatles were back from America, an international sensation.
0:17:32 > 0:17:34FANS SCREAM
0:17:34 > 0:17:37We were told you've come back from America millionaires.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40- That was kidding! Next time. - I'll buy you a drink.
0:17:40 > 0:17:44But perhaps the way to understand the Beatles is not
0:17:44 > 0:17:47just as a band whose music has become the soundtrack
0:17:47 > 0:17:51to our lives, but as a business proposition.
0:17:51 > 0:17:54For all the vigour and freshness of the songwriting,
0:17:54 > 0:17:58the Beatles were an immaculately packaged product.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02And for that, they had one man in particular to thank.
0:18:05 > 0:18:08- ARCHIVE:- Brian Epstein - the Beatles' manager.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11Artists credit him with a unique judgment of what will be a hit
0:18:11 > 0:18:12and who will make it.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15Nearly all of them earn more than the Prime Minister.
0:18:17 > 0:18:20Brian Epstein has become a near-legendary figure -
0:18:20 > 0:18:24a Liverpool businessman who discovered the Beatles
0:18:24 > 0:18:26at the Cavern Club in 1961
0:18:26 > 0:18:29and managed them until his early death in 1967.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32I hadn't had anything to do with
0:18:32 > 0:18:34management of pop artists before
0:18:34 > 0:18:36that day that I went down to the Cavern Club
0:18:36 > 0:18:39and heard the Beatles playing.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43Having grown up working for his parents' furniture business,
0:18:43 > 0:18:46Epstein knew a thing or two about selling
0:18:46 > 0:18:50and he knew exactly how he wanted to package the band.
0:18:50 > 0:18:57The Beatles were then just four lads on that rather dimly-lit stage,
0:18:57 > 0:19:02er, somewhat ill-clad, and their presentation was...
0:19:02 > 0:19:05well, left little to be desired, as far as I was concerned.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10One of the first things that Brian Epstein did was to bring
0:19:10 > 0:19:13the Beatles to Liverpool's finest tailor.
0:19:13 > 0:19:18And there, he replaced their black leather jackets with smart,
0:19:18 > 0:19:20dark suits.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23In essence, Epstein had turned them into the kind of band
0:19:23 > 0:19:26that your mother would approve of. But he was also making them
0:19:26 > 0:19:31a band, or a brand, that was quintessentially British.
0:19:31 > 0:19:35No longer did the Beatles look like 1950s American rockers.
0:19:35 > 0:19:41Now they projected a kind of sanitised, exaggerated Britishness.
0:19:41 > 0:19:43MUSIC: A Hard Day's Night by The Beatles
0:19:43 > 0:19:47# It's been a hard day's night
0:19:47 > 0:19:50# And I've been working like a dog
0:19:50 > 0:19:54# It's been a hard day's night
0:19:54 > 0:19:57# I should be sleeping like a log
0:19:57 > 0:19:58# But when I get home to you
0:19:58 > 0:20:00# I find the things that you do
0:20:00 > 0:20:03# Will make me feel all right. #
0:20:05 > 0:20:07And it wasn't just the suits.
0:20:07 > 0:20:11The Beatles were cheeky and irreverent,
0:20:11 > 0:20:15loveable Liverpool jesters, not just serious musicians.
0:20:17 > 0:20:18- Thank you very much.- All the best.
0:20:18 > 0:20:20- Cheers.- Goodbye.- Goodbye. Goodbye.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23Well, you don't interview the Beatles, you just play straight men.
0:20:29 > 0:20:33For an American audience, they'd seen something entirely new.
0:20:34 > 0:20:35Very quickly,
0:20:35 > 0:20:39Epstein's boys were generating enormous international sales.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42It made a rather refreshing change.
0:20:44 > 0:20:49By the early 1960s, the world was turning its back on British exports,
0:20:49 > 0:20:52but the Beatles were bucking the trend.
0:20:52 > 0:20:56By 1967, they were making £20m worth of export business
0:20:56 > 0:20:59from the United States alone.
0:21:00 > 0:21:02George, how do you like being described
0:21:02 > 0:21:04as the Prime Minister's secret weapon?
0:21:04 > 0:21:06Er, it's been great, yeah.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09The thing is I didn't get the bit where they said,
0:21:09 > 0:21:11"Earning all these dollars for Britain."
0:21:11 > 0:21:13Like, are we sharing it out or something?
0:21:15 > 0:21:19The truth was, they were the Prime Minister's secret weapon
0:21:19 > 0:21:23and in 1965, Downing Street showed its appreciation
0:21:23 > 0:21:25in a very public fashion.
0:21:25 > 0:21:27- ARCHIVE:- So came the summons to the palace.
0:21:27 > 0:21:30The news got round to the faithful that the world's number one group
0:21:30 > 0:21:32were to be invested by Her Majesty
0:21:32 > 0:21:36with the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
0:21:36 > 0:21:38But their MBEs weren't for music.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42The press claimed they were for money, for "services to exports".
0:21:42 > 0:21:43MUSIC: I Feel Fine by The Beatles
0:21:43 > 0:21:45# Baby's good to me, you know
0:21:45 > 0:21:47# She's happy as can be, you know
0:21:47 > 0:21:48# She said so
0:21:50 > 0:21:51# I'm in love with her
0:21:51 > 0:21:54# And I feel fine... #
0:21:54 > 0:21:57This was an extraordinary moment.
0:21:57 > 0:21:59Today we take it for granted that pop stars
0:21:59 > 0:22:03and celebrities will be awarded MBEs almost every year.
0:22:03 > 0:22:08But in 1965, the Beatles' award felt genuinely shocking.
0:22:08 > 0:22:12For the first time, Britain's political establishment had
0:22:12 > 0:22:16recognised and rewarded pop cultural capital.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20- Why is the MBE awarded, though? - I don't know.- No idea.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23In fact, I know nothing about it. It's just that we've got it
0:22:23 > 0:22:27and it's nice to have and it doesn't make you more respectable or
0:22:27 > 0:22:29anything I don't think.
0:22:29 > 0:22:30Maybe other people think it does.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33Doesn't make me any more respectable. I'm still a scruff.
0:22:34 > 0:22:39The Beatles had been clutched to the bosom of the British establishment.
0:22:39 > 0:22:41And not everyone was happy about it.
0:22:44 > 0:22:49The pages of The Times simmered with outrage. "For the next war,"
0:22:49 > 0:22:54wrote one man, "do not count on me, use the Beatles or the beatniks."
0:22:56 > 0:22:58But amid all the invective,
0:22:58 > 0:23:02some correspondents grasped the deeper issues.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06"Sir, may I list a few of the reasons why many people think
0:23:06 > 0:23:10"national recognition of the Beatles quite appropriate?
0:23:10 > 0:23:14"1. They are significant earners of foreign exchange.
0:23:14 > 0:23:15"2. They have, to quote Mr Heath
0:23:15 > 0:23:18"when he was President of the Board of Trade,
0:23:18 > 0:23:21"'saved the British corduroy industry.'
0:23:21 > 0:23:24"3. They have helped to correct the foreign vision
0:23:24 > 0:23:26"of Britain as a country
0:23:26 > 0:23:29"entirely populated by middle class conservatives of all sorts,
0:23:29 > 0:23:34"eg stockbrokers, wildcat strikers, Beefeaters
0:23:34 > 0:23:37"and Pembrokeshire coracle fisherman."
0:23:37 > 0:23:40MUSIC: Ticket To Ride by The Beatles
0:23:40 > 0:23:44By now Britain's sense of its own identity seemed in flux.
0:23:44 > 0:23:48With our empire gone, and our industry dying,
0:23:48 > 0:23:52here was a new role - entertainers to the world.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54# I think I'm gonna be sad
0:23:54 > 0:23:58# I think it's today, yeah... #
0:23:58 > 0:24:03Every cultural revolution needs its founding texts.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08Preserved here in the Bodleian Library in Oxford is
0:24:08 > 0:24:11a document that arguably shaped modern Britain
0:24:11 > 0:24:14every bit as much as, well, the Magna Carta.
0:24:18 > 0:24:21This is the very first Sunday Times colour section
0:24:21 > 0:24:25from 4th February 1962.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28Now today, every Sunday paper has a colour supplement,
0:24:28 > 0:24:32but at the time, this represented something thrillingly new -
0:24:32 > 0:24:36a glossy colour magazine carefully targeted at young,
0:24:36 > 0:24:38affluent, and often female readers.
0:24:38 > 0:24:40So this very first cover
0:24:40 > 0:24:43features the model of the moment, Jean Shrimpton.
0:24:43 > 0:24:45It's just your eyes I'm interested in now. Good.
0:24:45 > 0:24:49MUSIC: She's Not There by The Zombies
0:24:49 > 0:24:52..wearing clothes by Mary Quant...
0:24:52 > 0:24:55photographed by David Bailey.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58Make that... Let me... Who told you to move?
0:24:58 > 0:25:03And there's even the promise of a new James Bond story by Ian Fleming.
0:25:03 > 0:25:04Something for everyone.
0:25:07 > 0:25:10And everyone, it seemed, rather liked it.
0:25:15 > 0:25:21Within nine months, The Sunday Times had 200,000 extra readers.
0:25:21 > 0:25:23And by 1964 The Sunday Telegraph
0:25:23 > 0:25:27and The Observer had launched colour supplements of their own.
0:25:27 > 0:25:30And in these glossy pages
0:25:30 > 0:25:33you could read about the latest British fashions...
0:25:35 > 0:25:37..the latest British film stars...
0:25:37 > 0:25:39MUSIC OVER SPEECH
0:25:39 > 0:25:41..the latest British pop groups.
0:25:43 > 0:25:48Aspirational, materialistic, and heavily funded by advertising,
0:25:48 > 0:25:52these glossy magazines played a central role in creating the
0:25:52 > 0:25:56idea of the Swinging '60s and more specifically, of Swinging London.
0:25:56 > 0:25:59MUSIC: Dedicated Follower Of Fashion by The Kinks
0:25:59 > 0:26:00# They seek him here
0:26:02 > 0:26:03# They seek him there
0:26:04 > 0:26:06# His clothes are loud
0:26:07 > 0:26:09# But never square... #
0:26:09 > 0:26:12If you read enough of these magazines,
0:26:12 > 0:26:16you might imagine that London was a buzzing, technicolour metropolis...
0:26:16 > 0:26:20# Cos he's a dedicated follower of fashion... #
0:26:20 > 0:26:25..a city inhabited solely by artists, pop stars and models.
0:26:27 > 0:26:28# Round the boutiques... #
0:26:30 > 0:26:34But in truth it wasn't quite like that.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37# Keep pursuing all the latest fashion trends
0:26:37 > 0:26:42# Cos he's a dedicated follower of fashion... #
0:26:42 > 0:26:47In 1968, almost a quarter of London's households were
0:26:47 > 0:26:48living in poverty.
0:26:50 > 0:26:54This was still, above all, a working industrial city.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00In reality, you know, the '60s only swung for a tiny minority.
0:27:00 > 0:27:02Of course, life was getting better,
0:27:02 > 0:27:05but even here in London that was more a question of cars,
0:27:05 > 0:27:10fridges and washing machines than of free love and flower power.
0:27:10 > 0:27:15Less Magical Mystery Tour, more Coronation Street. But in a sense,
0:27:15 > 0:27:16that didn't really matter.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19Swinging London was about the triumph of image
0:27:19 > 0:27:24and this was the key moment when Britain's image changed
0:27:24 > 0:27:29from grey, industrial powerhouse to technicolour, global entertainers.
0:27:34 > 0:27:39# Save me Somebody save me... #
0:27:39 > 0:27:43Swinging London may have been little more than a branding exercise
0:27:43 > 0:27:48to disguise our post-war decline but it worked.
0:27:48 > 0:27:53# Promised myself after my first romance... #
0:27:53 > 0:27:58What it created was a new image of Britain, both at home and abroad.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01An image of London as the capital of culture,
0:28:01 > 0:28:04and of Britain once again as a place of consequence.
0:28:04 > 0:28:09# Save me Oh, yeah, yeah
0:28:09 > 0:28:11# Save me... #
0:28:11 > 0:28:15The Swinging London phenomenon reached its peak with this -
0:28:15 > 0:28:20the April 1966 edition of the American magazine Time.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24Inside, in admittedly fairly excruciating prose,
0:28:24 > 0:28:29the magazine painted a picture of a city devoted to high fashion,
0:28:29 > 0:28:32pop culture and the pursuit of pleasure.
0:28:32 > 0:28:37Here's an extract. "This spring as never before in modern times,
0:28:37 > 0:28:39"London is switched on.
0:28:39 > 0:28:44"The city is alive with birds, girls, and Beatles, buzzing with Mini cars
0:28:44 > 0:28:49"and telly stars, pulsing with half a dozen separate veins of excitement."
0:28:54 > 0:28:57The tourists came in their droves.
0:28:57 > 0:29:02In 1960, some one-and-a-half million people had visited London.
0:29:02 > 0:29:06But by the mid '60s, that figure was more like six million.
0:29:07 > 0:29:10And London was now exporting the idea of its swinging scene
0:29:10 > 0:29:12all over the world.
0:29:15 > 0:29:18- ARCHIVE:- Caracas, the swinging city of Venezuela.
0:29:18 > 0:29:22The centro comercial chacaito building is the place for mod gear.
0:29:22 > 0:29:25The influence is definitely Carnaby Street.
0:29:25 > 0:29:28Boutiques abound crammed with pace-setting clobber
0:29:28 > 0:29:31hot from the fashion centre in London W1.
0:29:33 > 0:29:36Only a few years earlier, Britain had still been
0:29:36 > 0:29:40one of the world's great exporters of steel and ships.
0:29:40 > 0:29:43Now we were selling fashion and music.
0:29:43 > 0:29:47And like our old industrial exports, these things were often made in our
0:29:47 > 0:29:53manufacturing heartlands and brought to London before being sold abroad.
0:29:53 > 0:29:56Victorian London had been the world capital of money,
0:29:56 > 0:30:01but '60s London saw itself as the capital of culture.
0:30:06 > 0:30:10But for one young entrepreneur, it was precisely our Victorian legacy
0:30:10 > 0:30:13that offered the greatest cultural possibilities.
0:30:13 > 0:30:19After all, Britain still had a rich network of global connections -
0:30:19 > 0:30:21the threads of empire.
0:30:21 > 0:30:26And while his predecessors had been trading slaves and sugar,
0:30:26 > 0:30:29his chosen commodity was culture.
0:30:29 > 0:30:36# Keep on running Keep on hiding
0:30:36 > 0:30:41# One fine day I'm gonna be the one to make you understand... #
0:30:41 > 0:30:42In the early 1960s,
0:30:42 > 0:30:47this corner of West London, then neglected and shabby,
0:30:47 > 0:30:50was home to many of the city's growing West Indian community.
0:30:55 > 0:30:59The spectacle of a 25-year-old former public schoolboy
0:30:59 > 0:31:02driving round these streets in a Mini Cooper
0:31:02 > 0:31:04might have seemed a bit incongruous.
0:31:04 > 0:31:06But the man in the Mini
0:31:06 > 0:31:09was one of the most remarkable cultural entrepreneurs
0:31:09 > 0:31:11in our modern history.
0:31:11 > 0:31:14His name was Chris Blackwell, and he'd grown up in Jamaica
0:31:14 > 0:31:17and fallen in love with the local music.
0:31:17 > 0:31:18And he was here in London
0:31:18 > 0:31:22to sell ska music to the Jamaican immigrant community.
0:31:22 > 0:31:25And he kept the records... in the boot.
0:31:26 > 0:31:29MUSIC: Train to Skaville by The Ethiopians
0:31:32 > 0:31:35Like all great entrepreneurs,
0:31:35 > 0:31:37Blackwell had identified a market.
0:31:39 > 0:31:43Any moment now there's going to be a fierce outbreak of ska.
0:31:43 > 0:31:45And ska is the new beat
0:31:45 > 0:31:47from the West Indies - from Jamaica.
0:31:50 > 0:31:53Where the Victorians had imported Jamaican sugar,
0:31:53 > 0:31:57Chris Blackwell was going to import Jamaican music.
0:31:57 > 0:32:01And he did so with remarkable success.
0:32:02 > 0:32:04Daylight come and I wanna go home,
0:32:04 > 0:32:07but all THEY want to do...is ska.
0:32:08 > 0:32:10# My boy lollipop
0:32:11 > 0:32:14# You make my heart go giddy-up
0:32:15 > 0:32:17# You set the world on fire
0:32:18 > 0:32:21# You are my one desire... #
0:32:21 > 0:32:24His first hit came from the 17-year-old Millie Small,
0:32:24 > 0:32:27with the single My Boy Lollipop.
0:32:29 > 0:32:32Blackwell's label, Island Records,
0:32:32 > 0:32:35quickly became one of the most exciting around,
0:32:35 > 0:32:37with a remarkable roster of talent.
0:32:41 > 0:32:43But Blackwell always dreamed
0:32:43 > 0:32:47of propelling Jamaican music into the mainstream.
0:32:47 > 0:32:50And in the early 1970s, he got his chance.
0:32:55 > 0:32:59By 1970, Blackwell had set up a recording studio
0:32:59 > 0:33:02here at Basing Street, West London.
0:33:02 > 0:33:06This room, believe it or not, was his office.
0:33:06 > 0:33:09And it was through that door that in 1972,
0:33:09 > 0:33:11Bob Marley and the Wailers
0:33:11 > 0:33:14came strolling in for their first meeting
0:33:14 > 0:33:16with the man who would make them famous.
0:33:16 > 0:33:19MUSIC: Concrete Jungle by Bob Marley and the Wailers
0:33:23 > 0:33:25They made such an impression
0:33:25 > 0:33:28that Blackwell gave them £4,000 then and there
0:33:28 > 0:33:31to go away and make a record.
0:33:31 > 0:33:32Now, some of his friends were worried
0:33:32 > 0:33:36that he'd never see the money or indeed the band ever again.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40But Blackwell's hunch would pay handsome dividends.
0:33:40 > 0:33:44- # Darkness has covered my light - And has changed
0:33:44 > 0:33:48# And has changed my day into night
0:33:48 > 0:33:49# Yeah
0:33:49 > 0:33:54# Where is the love to be found?
0:33:54 > 0:33:57# Won't someone tell me... #
0:33:57 > 0:33:59A couple of months later,
0:33:59 > 0:34:01Blackwell was invited to the studio
0:34:01 > 0:34:04to hear what would become Marley's first album for Island,
0:34:04 > 0:34:06Catch A Fire.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16Up until this point, reggae was still very much a minority interest,
0:34:16 > 0:34:18but Blackwell was convinced
0:34:18 > 0:34:22that Bob Marley could take it into the musical mainstream.
0:34:22 > 0:34:23To do that, though,
0:34:23 > 0:34:25Blackwell felt they needed to make the music
0:34:25 > 0:34:27more accessible for a British audience.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33So he deliberately toned down the frenetic reggae style,
0:34:33 > 0:34:36he introduced more guitars and more synthesisers.
0:34:36 > 0:34:38He even expanded the solos.
0:34:39 > 0:34:41And the result
0:34:41 > 0:34:43was one of the most influential records
0:34:43 > 0:34:45in rock music history.
0:34:46 > 0:34:48MUSIC: Stir It Up by Bob Marley and the Wailers
0:34:48 > 0:34:50# Stir it up
0:34:50 > 0:34:54# Little darlin', stir it up
0:34:55 > 0:34:57# Come on, baby
0:34:59 > 0:35:01# Stir it up
0:35:03 > 0:35:04# Little darlin'... #
0:35:04 > 0:35:07Catch A Fire was released to enormous acclaim.
0:35:08 > 0:35:11It kick-started Marley's career.
0:35:11 > 0:35:15- # It's been a long, long time, yeah - Stir it, stir it, stir it together
0:35:15 > 0:35:19# Since I've got you on my mind
0:35:19 > 0:35:21# Ooh-ooh-ooh... #
0:35:21 > 0:35:24But Blackwell had one more trick up his sleeve.
0:35:24 > 0:35:27Chris Blackwell always had a real flair for marketing,
0:35:27 > 0:35:30and in particular he was a great believer in packaging.
0:35:30 > 0:35:33If people thought something looked good on the outside, he once said,
0:35:33 > 0:35:35then they would naturally assume
0:35:35 > 0:35:37there must be something good on the inside.
0:35:37 > 0:35:40And that's certainly true of Catch A Fire.
0:35:40 > 0:35:43So, the album is designed like a Zippo lighter.
0:35:43 > 0:35:45You flick it open, you get the fire,
0:35:45 > 0:35:48and, ultimately, the vinyl.
0:35:48 > 0:35:50To be completely honest, it is actually a bit of a hassle
0:35:50 > 0:35:52getting the record in and out,
0:35:52 > 0:35:54but that, I suppose, is beside the point,
0:35:54 > 0:35:58because in the early 1970s, this seemed like a thing of beauty.
0:35:58 > 0:36:00And, let's be honest,
0:36:00 > 0:36:03it is a lot better looking than an iTunes download.
0:36:04 > 0:36:06# Exodus
0:36:06 > 0:36:08# All right... #
0:36:08 > 0:36:11The combination of Bob Marley's talent and charisma
0:36:11 > 0:36:14and Chris Blackwell's entrepreneurial nous
0:36:14 > 0:36:19turned the reggae artist into a global superstar.
0:36:19 > 0:36:22- ARCHIVE:- Island Records have invested several hundred thousand dollars
0:36:22 > 0:36:24in Bob Marley and the Wailers,
0:36:24 > 0:36:27and the dividend just keeps on increasing.
0:36:27 > 0:36:28# We're the generation... #
0:36:28 > 0:36:33Legend: The Best Of Bob Marley went on to sell 25 million copies,
0:36:33 > 0:36:37becoming one of the bestselling albums of all time.
0:36:39 > 0:36:41- ARCHIVE:- Reggae's now firmly established
0:36:41 > 0:36:44as a highly marketable commodity, heard throughout the world -
0:36:44 > 0:36:47perhaps the only really new sound of the '70s.
0:36:47 > 0:36:49# Woe yoe...
0:36:49 > 0:36:50- CROWD:- # Woe yoe
0:36:50 > 0:36:52# Woe yoe yoe yoe yoe... #
0:36:52 > 0:36:56All this could, I think, only have happened in Britain.
0:36:56 > 0:36:58You see, in essence what Blackwell was doing
0:36:58 > 0:37:01was capitalising on the long established relationship
0:37:01 > 0:37:04between the imperial metropolis, London,
0:37:04 > 0:37:07and its former colony, Jamaica.
0:37:07 > 0:37:11Only this time, the key commodity wasn't sugar - it was music.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13And whatever you might think of the empire,
0:37:13 > 0:37:17the fact is that it left Britain at the centre of a dense web
0:37:17 > 0:37:20of cultural and economic connections,
0:37:20 > 0:37:23and it was this network that Blackwell used
0:37:23 > 0:37:26to bring reggae to a global audience.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31# Called you so many times today
0:37:31 > 0:37:34# And I guess it's all true what your girlfriends say
0:37:34 > 0:37:38# That you don't ever wanna see me again
0:37:38 > 0:37:41# And your brother's gonna kill me and he's six feet ten... #
0:37:41 > 0:37:45The influence of reggae can still be heard to this day.
0:37:45 > 0:37:47And the deeper tones of Jamaican dub and dancehall
0:37:47 > 0:37:50have inspired British music movements
0:37:50 > 0:37:53from drum and bass to dubstep and grime.
0:37:53 > 0:37:55# Look at me, I been a cheeky ... man and
0:37:55 > 0:37:58# Look at all the drama we started, now I'm
0:37:58 > 0:38:00# In here layin' on my back
0:38:00 > 0:38:03# Sayin' DJ, won't ya gimmie one more track?
0:38:03 > 0:38:06# Let it rain... #
0:38:06 > 0:38:08But, of course, not everybody's musical tastes
0:38:08 > 0:38:10are quite so cool and urban.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15When we think about the music of the '60s and '70s,
0:38:15 > 0:38:17we often think about the big names -
0:38:17 > 0:38:19people like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones,
0:38:19 > 0:38:22David Bowie and the Sex Pistols.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25But the reality was a bit more surprising.
0:38:25 > 0:38:28The bestselling act of the 1960s, for example,
0:38:28 > 0:38:29wasn't the Beatles -
0:38:29 > 0:38:32it was Soundtrack, featuring Original Cast.
0:38:32 > 0:38:36- LESLEY GARRETT:- # Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
0:38:36 > 0:38:40# Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens
0:38:40 > 0:38:44# Brown paper packages tied up with strings
0:38:44 > 0:38:47# These are a few of my favourite things... #
0:38:47 > 0:38:50Pop bands might have thrilled the kids,
0:38:50 > 0:38:53but they barely touched the unassailable popularity
0:38:53 > 0:38:55of the musical.
0:38:56 > 0:38:59By 1975, The Sound Of Music soundtrack
0:38:59 > 0:39:03had outsold the Beatles' bestselling album, Abbey Road,
0:39:03 > 0:39:06by a ratio of almost two to one.
0:39:09 > 0:39:10In the '50s and '60s,
0:39:10 > 0:39:13musical theatre was dominated by Broadway.
0:39:14 > 0:39:19But by the 1970s, there was a new kid on the block. And he was British.
0:39:19 > 0:39:22MUSIC: The Phantom Of The Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber
0:39:25 > 0:39:28On 9th October 1986,
0:39:28 > 0:39:31Her Majesty's Theatre here in London's Haymarket
0:39:31 > 0:39:33was the venue for the gala opening
0:39:33 > 0:39:37of the most anticipated new show in the West End.
0:39:37 > 0:39:39This was the first night
0:39:39 > 0:39:42of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera -
0:39:42 > 0:39:44the hottest ticket in town.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49# The phantom of the opera is here... #
0:39:51 > 0:39:54The story goes that the composer himself was a bag of nerves,
0:39:54 > 0:39:56and at the interval, he and the show's producer,
0:39:56 > 0:40:01Cameron Mackintosh, headed off to a local bar for a few stiff drinks.
0:40:01 > 0:40:05They didn't even make it back in time for the curtain call.
0:40:05 > 0:40:06But they needn't have worried.
0:40:06 > 0:40:09Because as the last note died away,
0:40:09 > 0:40:13there was a ten-minute standing ovation.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16And The Phantom Of The Opera has been playing at this theatre,
0:40:16 > 0:40:19continuously, ever since.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27Andrew Lloyd-Webber had made his name in the 1970s
0:40:27 > 0:40:29with a string of hits
0:40:29 > 0:40:33from Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
0:40:33 > 0:40:35to Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43In 1981, Cats opened in the West End...
0:40:46 > 0:40:48..where it ran for 21 years.
0:40:51 > 0:40:52But The Phantom Of The Opera
0:40:52 > 0:40:56took Lloyd Webber's star to unprecedented heights,
0:40:56 > 0:40:58becoming the most financially successful
0:40:58 > 0:41:01entertainment event in history.
0:41:02 > 0:41:06For me, Andrew Lloyd Webber's great skill lies in his ability
0:41:06 > 0:41:08to take an apparently forbidding subject
0:41:08 > 0:41:12and apply a liberal sprinkling of stardust.
0:41:12 > 0:41:13Over the years, he has taken
0:41:13 > 0:41:18the book of Genesis, the story of Jesus, the life of Eva Peron,
0:41:18 > 0:41:21the poetry of TS Eliot and, in the case of Phantom,
0:41:21 > 0:41:24a half-forgotten Victorian horror story
0:41:24 > 0:41:29by the French writer Gaston Leroux, and he has turned each of them
0:41:29 > 0:41:33into a foot-stomping, hand-clapping, crowd-pleasing spectacle.
0:41:33 > 0:41:36And what could be more Victorian
0:41:36 > 0:41:39than broadening the minds of the great British public
0:41:39 > 0:41:43with a heady mixture of high culture and pure populism?
0:41:48 > 0:41:50Like all good populists,
0:41:50 > 0:41:53Lloyd Webber had a very canny approach to marketing.
0:41:56 > 0:41:59Keen to test the waters for his latest venture,
0:41:59 > 0:42:02he released the title track as a single
0:42:02 > 0:42:07nine months before the show opened.
0:42:07 > 0:42:13Sung by Sarah Brightman and Steve Harley, the former Cockney Rebel,
0:42:13 > 0:42:15it went straight into the top ten.
0:42:17 > 0:42:20# You'll give your love to me
0:42:20 > 0:42:22# For love is blind
0:42:25 > 0:42:29# The phantom of the opera
0:42:29 > 0:42:34# Is now my mastermind. #
0:42:34 > 0:42:39Somehow it feels supremely fitting that Andrew Lloyd Webber's
0:42:39 > 0:42:44most successful musical is set in a 19th-century opera house,
0:42:44 > 0:42:48because, to me, he feels like a very Victorian figure.
0:42:53 > 0:42:57He combines so many familiar roles - the theatrical impresario,
0:42:57 > 0:43:00the canny entrepreneur, the ambitious businessman,
0:43:00 > 0:43:03the civic philanthropist, the capitalist empire builder...
0:43:03 > 0:43:05all of them underpinned
0:43:05 > 0:43:11by the same combination of cultural uplift and commercial self-interest.
0:43:13 > 0:43:15Thanks to Lloyd Webber,
0:43:15 > 0:43:18musical theatre became the hottest ticket on Broadway
0:43:18 > 0:43:21and one of Britain's biggest cultural exports
0:43:21 > 0:43:24of the entire 1980s.
0:43:25 > 0:43:28And London's West End became a tourist honeypot,
0:43:28 > 0:43:32up there with Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London.
0:43:34 > 0:43:36As one cultural grandee put it -
0:43:36 > 0:43:40"The arts are to British tourism what the sun is to Spain".
0:43:42 > 0:43:43By the end of the decade,
0:43:43 > 0:43:49Lloyd Webber himself had become a multi-million-pound global brand.
0:43:49 > 0:43:51Only today we read that you insured yourself for £10m.
0:43:51 > 0:43:54I know you hate to talk about money but why did you have to do that?
0:43:54 > 0:43:57Well, I'm surprised and a bit saddened really
0:43:57 > 0:43:59because the last time I picked up a paper,
0:43:59 > 0:44:00I thought I was worth £300m.
0:44:00 > 0:44:02I seem to have come down in price.
0:44:04 > 0:44:071986 didn't just mark the launch of Phantom -
0:44:07 > 0:44:10it was also the year that Lloyd Webber's company,
0:44:10 > 0:44:14the Really Useful Group, floated on the London Stock Exchange.
0:44:15 > 0:44:20His music was now a commodity bought and sold all over the world.
0:44:29 > 0:44:31As Lloyd Webber well knew,
0:44:31 > 0:44:34in a society where the market rules,
0:44:34 > 0:44:38if you get the sales pitch right, then everything has its price.
0:44:51 > 0:44:55The shark tank at the aquarium in London's County Hall -
0:44:55 > 0:44:57probably their biggest attraction.
0:45:01 > 0:45:04But the most famous shark to take up residence in this building
0:45:04 > 0:45:06was rather less animated.
0:45:06 > 0:45:09It was, in fact, pickled.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18This tiger shark is officially known as
0:45:18 > 0:45:23The Physical Impossibility Of Death In The Mind Of Someone Living
0:45:23 > 0:45:25by the artist, Damien Hirst.
0:45:28 > 0:45:32In 2003, it went on display in a new gallery
0:45:32 > 0:45:34on the ground floor of County Hall.
0:45:35 > 0:45:39And it became perhaps the best-known work of British art
0:45:39 > 0:45:40in the last 40 years.
0:45:40 > 0:45:44It was commissioned by the advertising executive
0:45:44 > 0:45:48turned modern-art Svengali, Charles Saatchi.
0:45:50 > 0:45:54By the early 1990s, Saatchi had become the single most important
0:45:54 > 0:45:59patron of a group known as the YBAs - the Young British Artists.
0:45:59 > 0:46:03For the YBAs, the really important thing was the idea.
0:46:03 > 0:46:05They were interested less in technical skill
0:46:05 > 0:46:09than in provocative, even inflammatory imagery
0:46:11 > 0:46:15The YBAs gloried in arresting images, designed to shock.
0:46:17 > 0:46:19Dismembered livestock...
0:46:20 > 0:46:22..phallic foodstuffs...
0:46:22 > 0:46:27portraits of serial killers made with children's handprints...
0:46:27 > 0:46:29grotesque dolls -
0:46:29 > 0:46:32the triumph of the startling, shocking image.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38As Saatchi himself put it, they made art that was
0:46:38 > 0:46:42"head-buttingly impossible to ignore".
0:46:48 > 0:46:51It was little wonder they appealed to a former ad man.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55Indeed, Saatchi's forays into modern art were only possible
0:46:55 > 0:46:59because of his phenomenal success in the world of advertising.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02ARIA PLAYS
0:47:04 > 0:47:07In the '70s and '80s, he'd been involved
0:47:07 > 0:47:10with some of the most memorable TV ads ever made.
0:47:13 > 0:47:15With the fortune that he'd built selling brands,
0:47:15 > 0:47:19Saatchi came to dominate the contemporary art market.
0:47:23 > 0:47:28The art may have been modern, but his motives were very familiar.
0:47:31 > 0:47:34Charles Saatchi was not, of course, the first self-made man
0:47:34 > 0:47:37to spend his winnings on contemporary art.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40Exactly a century earlier, in the 1890s,
0:47:40 > 0:47:45the Victorian sugar magnate Sir Henry Tate had given his own
0:47:45 > 0:47:49substantial contemporary art collection to the nation.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52He even paid for a special gallery in which to house it - the Tate.
0:47:53 > 0:47:59For Tate and, I suspect for Saatchi, art meant status.
0:47:59 > 0:48:02So it was that Saatchi took to visiting degree shows like this one.
0:48:02 > 0:48:06Indeed, on occasion he would actually buy up entire degree shows.
0:48:10 > 0:48:13By the mid '90s, Saatchi's patronage had
0:48:13 > 0:48:17turned his iconoclastic proteges into household names.
0:48:18 > 0:48:22Suddenly British art seemed the most controversial
0:48:22 > 0:48:24and exciting in the world.
0:48:25 > 0:48:27Young artists all over Britain are producing work
0:48:27 > 0:48:30that is challenging, articulate and relevant.
0:48:33 > 0:48:37Now sometimes that work appears tasteless,
0:48:37 > 0:48:39and cynical and uncouth.
0:48:41 > 0:48:43I think it's because sometimes we all are.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49But Charles Saatchi did more than just buy art
0:48:49 > 0:48:52and show it off or store it away.
0:48:52 > 0:48:56He sold it on, creating a churn of speculation that increased
0:48:56 > 0:49:00the value of his holdings and created a boom in the market.
0:49:03 > 0:49:07YBAs emerged out of a very distinctive historical moment.
0:49:07 > 0:49:10Margaret Thatcher's election hat-trick had seemed to mark
0:49:10 > 0:49:13the definitive triumph of market forces.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16It is wonderful to be entrusted
0:49:16 > 0:49:19with the government of this country, this great country,
0:49:19 > 0:49:21once again.
0:49:21 > 0:49:24MUSIC: Fool's Gold by the Stone Roses
0:49:24 > 0:49:29Saatchi himself had played a pivotal role in Mrs Thatcher's success.
0:49:29 > 0:49:31His advertising agency had been behind some
0:49:31 > 0:49:35of the Conservatives' most eye-catching campaign publicity.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41And he strode into the world of art
0:49:41 > 0:49:43at the high watermark of Thatcherism.
0:49:45 > 0:49:50What Saatchi understood was that the YBAs' provocative, attention-seeking
0:49:50 > 0:49:53images were the perfect products
0:49:53 > 0:49:56for an age of conspicuous consumption.
0:49:56 > 0:50:01Charles Saatchi and the YBAs took the idea of "cultural capital"
0:50:01 > 0:50:06to extraordinary new heights. This was art for the age of money,
0:50:06 > 0:50:09made by a new generation who were all too conscious
0:50:09 > 0:50:11of their new earning power.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15MUSIC: Loose Fit by the Happy Mondays
0:50:24 > 0:50:27Even the artists themselves sometimes recognised
0:50:27 > 0:50:30the absurdity of their inflated price tags.
0:50:33 > 0:50:35How did the Damien Hirst ashtray come about?
0:50:35 > 0:50:37Me and Sarah started smoking quite violently.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41No, I always smoke quite violently. You started.
0:50:41 > 0:50:42I started smoking violently
0:50:42 > 0:50:44and we had this fantastic ashtray
0:50:44 > 0:50:47full of dog ends, and Sarah said look - it's a Damien Hirst.
0:50:49 > 0:50:50And I said it is Damien Hirst.
0:50:51 > 0:50:53So we just got a photocopy done,
0:50:53 > 0:50:56stuck it on the bottom and sold it for tons of money.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01And what of the man on the bottom of the ashtray?
0:51:01 > 0:51:03Damien Hirst, whose pickled shark
0:51:03 > 0:51:05Charles Saatchi had commissioned,
0:51:05 > 0:51:07became the poster boy of the YBAs.
0:51:09 > 0:51:13- How do you feel?- Good. Beautiful. Sexy.
0:51:13 > 0:51:16How do you feel?
0:51:18 > 0:51:21Hirst's art was an exercise in rampant commercialism,
0:51:21 > 0:51:28from a bull with horns and hooves cast in 18-carat gold
0:51:28 > 0:51:31to a human skull covered with £15m worth of diamonds.
0:51:34 > 0:51:36And to a canny businessman,
0:51:36 > 0:51:38intellectual property was everything.
0:51:38 > 0:51:40When the skull went on sale,
0:51:40 > 0:51:44the only images available were those provided by Hirst himself.
0:51:49 > 0:51:54In 2011, Hirst even gave classes in spin painting for the bankers
0:51:54 > 0:51:58and business giants at the global economic forum at Davos.
0:52:01 > 0:52:02But by then, this didn't seem odd.
0:52:02 > 0:52:06It seemed, in fact, like a typical British success story.
0:52:11 > 0:52:13VIDEO GAME BLEEPS
0:52:17 > 0:52:20Most people could never afford to buy a Damien Hirst.
0:52:20 > 0:52:22But they could afford
0:52:22 > 0:52:26the other great British success story of the day.
0:52:26 > 0:52:30And this was something based on the same spirit of technological
0:52:30 > 0:52:34innovation that had defined Britain's Victorian heyday.
0:52:35 > 0:52:37After all, the children of the '80s
0:52:37 > 0:52:40didn't just grow up with Thatcherism.
0:52:40 > 0:52:44They had something entirely new - the home computer.
0:52:46 > 0:52:49This was, I suppose, a new Industrial Revolution -
0:52:49 > 0:52:53almost mind-boggling, not just in the pace of technological change,
0:52:53 > 0:52:57but in its impact on our day-to-day lives.
0:52:57 > 0:53:01Now at the time, there was an awful lot of talk about the potential
0:53:01 > 0:53:02for education and business,
0:53:02 > 0:53:06but for a generation of self-taught teenage programmers,
0:53:06 > 0:53:10the machines' real potential lay in something altogether more fun -
0:53:10 > 0:53:12games.
0:53:16 > 0:53:17For a brief moment in the 1980s,
0:53:17 > 0:53:22home computers seemed an open market, a free-for-all, which saw
0:53:22 > 0:53:27a new breed of cultural entrepreneur emerge blinking into the daylight,
0:53:27 > 0:53:31well, or the glare of the television studio.
0:53:31 > 0:53:33Are they difficult to do, difficult to play?
0:53:33 > 0:53:38No, not really. Playing, it's just to get people used to the computer.
0:53:38 > 0:53:41To write them, it's difficult at first
0:53:41 > 0:53:43but when you get the hang of it, it's fine.
0:53:43 > 0:53:45Now what's happening here?
0:53:45 > 0:53:47Er, well, you're controlling a car. It's a racetrack.
0:53:47 > 0:53:49- Ah, then you've crashed.- Yes.
0:53:49 > 0:53:52I'll tell you something - you can't play with that
0:53:52 > 0:53:54- and talk at the same time, can you? - No, it's difficult.
0:53:54 > 0:53:57MUSIC: (Keep Feeling) Fascination by the Human League
0:53:57 > 0:54:02But there was one game, produced by two Cambridge undergraduates,
0:54:02 > 0:54:06David Braben and Ian Bell, which changed everything.
0:54:08 > 0:54:10We were writing for ourselves,
0:54:10 > 0:54:12in that we did what we wanted to do
0:54:12 > 0:54:15and not what we thought would sell, to a certain extent.
0:54:15 > 0:54:19But we always had the idea of writing a good-selling game.
0:54:19 > 0:54:21And that, they did.
0:54:21 > 0:54:24Will you become one of the Elite -
0:54:24 > 0:54:26the space combatiers,
0:54:26 > 0:54:29set apart by their total mastery of the space ways?
0:54:29 > 0:54:33Only players who have successfully piloted their armed Cobra
0:54:33 > 0:54:37spacecraft around a universe of 2,000 planets in eight galaxies,
0:54:37 > 0:54:39profitably trading commodities
0:54:39 > 0:54:46and fighting off space pirates as they go, qualify to join the Elite.
0:54:46 > 0:54:49# Keep feeling fascination
0:54:49 > 0:54:52# Passion burning, love so strong... #
0:54:58 > 0:55:02I was ten years old when Elite came out, and it took over my life.
0:55:02 > 0:55:04I spent months playing this game.
0:55:04 > 0:55:07Many of them, admittedly, waiting for it to load.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11Of course, by today's standards, it all looks pretty basic.
0:55:11 > 0:55:15But at the time, these simple wireframe graphics
0:55:15 > 0:55:16represented a revolution.
0:55:17 > 0:55:20MUSIC: Einstein A Go-go by Landscape
0:55:23 > 0:55:25Elite was something entirely new.
0:55:27 > 0:55:30This wasn't a three-minute arcade game, it was an epic -
0:55:30 > 0:55:34presenting players with a seemingly endless universe
0:55:34 > 0:55:36to explore on their own terms.
0:55:37 > 0:55:41You could run guns, traffic drugs, vaporise whomever you liked.
0:55:43 > 0:55:48Your decisions had consequences. But they were your decisions.
0:55:51 > 0:55:56Braben and Bell had turned computer games into mainstream culture.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59This was an immersive open-ended world
0:55:59 > 0:56:01which drew heavily on science fiction.
0:56:05 > 0:56:08David Braben and Ian Bell were barely into their 20s
0:56:08 > 0:56:10when Elite came out.
0:56:10 > 0:56:15They represented a new kind of cultural hero - the geeky genius.
0:56:15 > 0:56:18I mean, it started off as a hobby,
0:56:18 > 0:56:20Well, it still is really a hobby,
0:56:20 > 0:56:22but obviously it has changed slightly.
0:56:22 > 0:56:26- On the other hand, it is quite profitable in the long run.- Mm. Yes.
0:56:26 > 0:56:29Elite was also very much a product of the Thatcherite '80s -
0:56:29 > 0:56:32a fact reinforced by its mercenary ethos -
0:56:32 > 0:56:38trade, fight and pillage your way to the top in order to become "Elite".
0:56:38 > 0:56:41But I think it also represented a much older sensibility -
0:56:41 > 0:56:44the kind of individual drive
0:56:44 > 0:56:48and technological ambition that had led Richard Arkwright to develop
0:56:48 > 0:56:52his spinning frame, or Boulton and Watt to pioneer the steam engine.
0:56:57 > 0:57:01And this entrepreneurial strategy would pay handsome dividends.
0:57:01 > 0:57:05In the last 30 years, video games have been the fastest-growing
0:57:05 > 0:57:08cultural commodity in the world,
0:57:08 > 0:57:11elevated from children's entertainment
0:57:11 > 0:57:13to multi-million-pound blockbusters.
0:57:21 > 0:57:24From Elite's rather basic beginnings have grown this -
0:57:24 > 0:57:28the fastest-selling entertainment product in history.
0:57:33 > 0:57:37Grand Theft Auto looks American. It sounds American.
0:57:37 > 0:57:41It has a distinctly American attitude to firearms.
0:57:41 > 0:57:42But it's actually British...
0:57:43 > 0:57:45..made in Scotland
0:57:45 > 0:57:49and based on the very same free-roaming concept as Elite.
0:57:50 > 0:57:55The latest version earned a billion dollars in its first three days.
0:58:00 > 0:58:02When we think of the Victorians,
0:58:02 > 0:58:06we remember an extraordinary generation who built our world
0:58:06 > 0:58:09in bricks and mortar, glass and steel.
0:58:09 > 0:58:12And I think their spirit still endures.
0:58:12 > 0:58:14You know, we love to run ourselves down,
0:58:14 > 0:58:18but our popular culture, fuelled by exactly the same ambition
0:58:18 > 0:58:21and inventiveness that drove the Victorians,
0:58:21 > 0:58:23is simply second to none.
0:58:23 > 0:58:27We may no longer be the workshop of the world, turning out ships
0:58:27 > 0:58:32and steel, but we do still make one thing better than anybody else -
0:58:32 > 0:58:34we make stories.
0:58:38 > 0:58:42Next time - some of our culture's favourite subjects -
0:58:42 > 0:58:46very rich people, very posh people
0:58:46 > 0:58:48and very large houses.