0:00:06 > 0:00:09Is it part of the human condition
0:00:09 > 0:00:13to dream of living in a better world?
0:00:13 > 0:00:14In a utopia?
0:00:17 > 0:00:20Ever since Thomas More coined the term,
0:00:20 > 0:00:23the idea of utopia has captivated us.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27It's been reimagined and reinvented by generations of writers
0:00:27 > 0:00:31and artists and dreamers, each interpreting it
0:00:31 > 0:00:33in their own distinctive ways.
0:00:33 > 0:00:38But why has this vision of a place somewhere between fiction and reality
0:00:38 > 0:00:41exerted such a hold over us?
0:00:46 > 0:00:49Utopian dreams have driven popular culture...
0:00:52 > 0:00:54..and high art.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57From Swift to Star Trek...
0:00:59 > 0:01:02..Wagner to Wikipedia,
0:01:02 > 0:01:05utopias have broadened the horizons of the human imagination,
0:01:05 > 0:01:08inspiring extraordinary architecture...
0:01:08 > 0:01:09Look at this.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12..whole new genres of fiction...
0:01:14 > 0:01:17..and radical experimental communities.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19We're a deviant culture.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22We change the relationship that the people have with material goods.
0:01:24 > 0:01:30In this programme, I'm going to find out how utopias start as aspiration,
0:01:30 > 0:01:32as blueprints for fairer worlds.
0:01:34 > 0:01:38Could you guys come up with some rules about your own perfect worlds?
0:01:38 > 0:01:42I'll explore the values that utopian visions have in common and whether
0:01:42 > 0:01:45they can inspire real change.
0:01:45 > 0:01:49If you can improve the world for the most marginalised population,
0:01:49 > 0:01:51it can get better for all of us.
0:01:53 > 0:01:54By finding out what you can do,
0:01:54 > 0:01:57it's the only way you can be the best person you can be.
0:01:57 > 0:02:00I want to ask what our utopian visions reveal
0:02:00 > 0:02:03about humanity's deepest hopes
0:02:03 > 0:02:04and fears.
0:02:19 > 0:02:21Remember this?
0:02:21 > 0:02:24This seems like an age ago now, doesn't it?
0:02:24 > 0:02:26A kind of warning that the route
0:02:26 > 0:02:29towards a better world is rarely smooth.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35This is our time to restore prosperity and
0:02:35 > 0:02:39promote the cause of peace, and reaffirm that while we breathe,
0:02:39 > 0:02:43we hope, and where we are met with cynicism and doubts
0:02:43 > 0:02:47and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that
0:02:47 > 0:02:51timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people -
0:02:51 > 0:02:53yes, we can.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56- CROWD CHANTS:- Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!
0:02:56 > 0:03:00We all want to believe in a better world, in a utopia.
0:03:01 > 0:03:02The big puzzle, of course,
0:03:02 > 0:03:05and it's baffled humanity at least since Plato,
0:03:05 > 0:03:07is how do we get there?
0:03:07 > 0:03:10CHEERING
0:03:13 > 0:03:17Let's start with perhaps the most basic utopia of all -
0:03:17 > 0:03:22a moment of liberation from the humdrum of everyday life.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25FOOTBALL CROWD CHANTS
0:03:27 > 0:03:30Where better to begin than at a football match?
0:03:37 > 0:03:40Here, tens of thousands of people come together
0:03:40 > 0:03:44to share in a common passion and a dream.
0:03:44 > 0:03:46CROWD ROARS
0:03:53 > 0:03:57If there's one person who understands this utopia,
0:03:57 > 0:04:00it's veteran commentator John Motson.
0:04:01 > 0:04:02I think for many, many people
0:04:02 > 0:04:07it was always a release, because when football crowds were huge,
0:04:07 > 0:04:08just after the Second World War,
0:04:08 > 0:04:11many people worked, not just Monday to Friday,
0:04:11 > 0:04:13but the men would also work Saturday morning.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16And when they left their jobs at lunchtime on Saturday
0:04:16 > 0:04:19they would make straight for the football stadium,
0:04:19 > 0:04:21and that was their release at the end of
0:04:21 > 0:04:24a very gruelling and maybe boring working week.
0:04:27 > 0:04:31There was a utopian feel about it because this was their moment when
0:04:31 > 0:04:36they could let off steam, or cheer or boo or support their local club.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44I love those Lowry paintings of the football grounds and
0:04:44 > 0:04:46everyone processing in...
0:04:46 > 0:04:48- Yeah.- ..as a direct equivalent of the factory.
0:04:48 > 0:04:52And, of course, going to the match is one of them, isn't it?
0:04:52 > 0:04:55It conveys them descending on a football ground.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00The factory worker and the managers are all in the same place and
0:05:00 > 0:05:03they're all cheering for the same thing.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06- That's right.- And that's quite amazing in terms of bringing
0:05:06 > 0:05:07a community back together.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10Yeah, and I think that's where this feeling of belonging...
0:05:12 > 0:05:15..for a football fan, is really essential to why he's going,
0:05:15 > 0:05:18because once he gets inside the ground,
0:05:18 > 0:05:22he is irrevocably linked to the performance of those players
0:05:22 > 0:05:24and to the brains of that manager.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27You know, suddenly, they're at one.
0:05:31 > 0:05:32They all want success
0:05:32 > 0:05:34and if it's failure,
0:05:34 > 0:05:37they all go through that as well, together.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44Football says something to me about the resilience of humans and
0:05:44 > 0:05:48their ability to keep on hoping and keep on dreaming.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51Yes, yeah. Absolutely. Clubs have their good runs and their bad runs
0:05:51 > 0:05:53and the supporters live through the bad runs,
0:05:53 > 0:05:55hoping that the good run is going to come very soon.
0:05:55 > 0:05:58I always remember reading Alan Sillitoe's book,
0:05:58 > 0:06:00Saturday Night And Sunday Morning.
0:06:00 > 0:06:03- Oh, yeah, wonderful.- And sort of the antihero of that, where he said,
0:06:03 > 0:06:07the chapter started, "He always knew Notts were going to lose,"
0:06:07 > 0:06:10cos the guy was a Notts County fan, but he was so pessimistic
0:06:10 > 0:06:12when he went to the game!
0:06:12 > 0:06:14So, and I mean, that makes another point -
0:06:14 > 0:06:17football isn't all about, you know, standing there and yelling, I mean,
0:06:17 > 0:06:19there is a sort of a sentimental,
0:06:19 > 0:06:22cultural side to the way people follow the game.
0:06:27 > 0:06:33John Motson's right. Football is about so much more than football.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36I think it speaks to a deeper yearning.
0:06:38 > 0:06:45This shared hope for better, week in, week out, come what may.
0:06:45 > 0:06:47It seems to me that hope,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50that optimism is something that runs as a current
0:06:50 > 0:06:53all the way through human history.
0:06:59 > 0:07:03The kind of hope for better that we see in football fans
0:07:03 > 0:07:08was given philosophical gravitas by the Tudor polymath Thomas More.
0:07:11 > 0:07:15More set out a blueprint for a better world - an imaginary,
0:07:15 > 0:07:19idealised society, with a name which started
0:07:19 > 0:07:21as a knowing classical joke.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26Literally, in Latinised Greek,
0:07:26 > 0:07:28utopia means "no place".
0:07:28 > 0:07:31It's a place that can't exist,
0:07:31 > 0:07:33or a place that doesn't exist.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36But when Thomas More published the book in 1516,
0:07:36 > 0:07:39he included a poem in which he spelt the word differently -
0:07:39 > 0:07:43eutopie, which means a "good place".
0:07:43 > 0:07:46And it's that inherent ambiguity
0:07:46 > 0:07:50that means that utopia's been contested for centuries.
0:07:53 > 0:07:57More's own dream of utopia was of a faraway land.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04His book is presented as a mariner's tale.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07It was written in an era of feverish excitement,
0:08:07 > 0:08:12as a new and perhaps better world was being charted across the seas.
0:08:18 > 0:08:23In Bristol, tourists take a spin in a replica of the Matthew -
0:08:23 > 0:08:25the small ship in which John Cabot sailed
0:08:25 > 0:08:27across the Atlantic in 1497...
0:08:29 > 0:08:30..and reached North America.
0:08:38 > 0:08:39During the Age of Exploration,
0:08:39 > 0:08:42there were ships like this travelling all over the world,
0:08:42 > 0:08:44packed with hardy souls,
0:08:44 > 0:08:47desperate to find new knowledge, new understanding,
0:08:47 > 0:08:49who knows? New lands.
0:08:50 > 0:08:54To me, the sea was like the internet of its age -
0:08:54 > 0:08:57little packets of information travelling backwards and forwards,
0:08:57 > 0:08:59crisscrossing the globe.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03And those sailors who were coming into ports were coming with
0:09:03 > 0:09:09pretty tall tales of lands far away that were verging on perfect.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11The promise of a utopia,
0:09:11 > 0:09:13of a better place, of a good place,
0:09:13 > 0:09:16always seemed to be just over the horizon.
0:09:24 > 0:09:26Thomas More's Utopia was partly inspired by
0:09:26 > 0:09:28Amerigo Vespucci's reports of
0:09:28 > 0:09:32his encounters with the natives of South America,
0:09:32 > 0:09:35innocent and uncorrupted by the European love of gold.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41The natives of More's Utopia have democracy,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44religious tolerance and no private property.
0:09:46 > 0:09:50What's fascinating, I think, is that More puts forward a version
0:09:50 > 0:09:53of communism several centuries before Marx and Lenin.
0:09:54 > 0:09:55He writes...
0:09:55 > 0:09:59Nobody owns anything but everyone is rich,
0:09:59 > 0:10:02for what greater wealth can there be than cheerfulness,
0:10:02 > 0:10:05peace of mind and freedom from anxiety?
0:10:08 > 0:10:12It's a very romantic idea that, back in the Golden Age of Exploration,
0:10:12 > 0:10:15people weren't just looking for trade routes and new resources
0:10:15 > 0:10:18but they were also looking for the answers to kind of all
0:10:18 > 0:10:20the big questions in life, you know, and the...
0:10:20 > 0:10:22And, therefore, to utopia.
0:10:23 > 0:10:28There's amazing stories and tales about people searching for
0:10:28 > 0:10:31Shangri-La and Eden and...
0:10:31 > 0:10:33I think today we're still the same.
0:10:33 > 0:10:35We might have mapped the planet,
0:10:35 > 0:10:38but there's still so much to see and experience for ourselves.
0:10:40 > 0:10:43Explorer Belinda Kirk has tracked camels through
0:10:43 > 0:10:46China's "Desert of Death"...
0:10:47 > 0:10:50..uncovered ancient rock paintings in Lesotho...
0:10:51 > 0:10:54..and rowed unsupported right around Britain.
0:10:56 > 0:10:59She believes that seeking out new and better worlds
0:10:59 > 0:11:03is more than just a choice - it's an innate urge.
0:11:04 > 0:11:07There's a lot of studies about the explorer gene,
0:11:07 > 0:11:10which has been identified as 7R and which is also known as
0:11:10 > 0:11:11the wanderlust gene.
0:11:11 > 0:11:16So, this idea that a fifth of the population have this...
0:11:17 > 0:11:21..real, strong feeling to explore.
0:11:21 > 0:11:25Now, that exploration might be physically looking for new lands
0:11:25 > 0:11:29or it might be that they are our philosophers.
0:11:29 > 0:11:30You know, they have got new ideas
0:11:30 > 0:11:33and they're the people who break those boundaries.
0:11:33 > 0:11:35Do you think that there's, you know,
0:11:35 > 0:11:39something utopian, inherently, about all exploration?
0:11:40 > 0:11:46I think it's the characteristic that is largely the reason for our
0:11:46 > 0:11:48development and evolution.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52The groups that are innovative, that are exploring,
0:11:52 > 0:11:54they're going to come up with the solutions
0:11:54 > 0:11:57and I think that's what you need, isn't it, for any utopia?
0:11:57 > 0:12:02You need progress and people being engaged, people being excited.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07There's that hope that this could be the trip that is really enriching.
0:12:10 > 0:12:12Is that what keeps you going back?
0:12:12 > 0:12:14I think at the time you don't always think that.
0:12:15 > 0:12:18There's a lot of type two fun in exploration.
0:12:18 > 0:12:20Don't know if you've heard of that.
0:12:20 > 0:12:21No, what's type one?
0:12:21 > 0:12:24So, type one is fun at the time and fun afterwards.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27Type two is not fun at the time but fun afterwards.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30And type three is not fun at any time.
0:12:30 > 0:12:31HE LAUGHS
0:12:31 > 0:12:36So, a lot of what happens on expeditions is you suffer a bit,
0:12:36 > 0:12:38but you learn that, through suffering,
0:12:38 > 0:12:41you can achieve things that you wouldn't otherwise achieve,
0:12:41 > 0:12:43and then I think you take that into the rest of your life.
0:12:43 > 0:12:48It does sound a little bit utopian, this idea that you can discover
0:12:48 > 0:12:51a better place that doesn't have to be an actual place,
0:12:51 > 0:12:54it can be a better place for yourself.
0:12:54 > 0:12:56By finding out what you can do,
0:12:56 > 0:12:59it's the only way you can be the best person you can be.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06Perhaps we don't all have the explorer gene,
0:13:06 > 0:13:12but that doesn't mean we can't go on a voyage to discover utopia vicariously.
0:13:12 > 0:13:16The exploits of the Age of Exploration spurred writers
0:13:16 > 0:13:19to imagine new and ever more exotic worlds.
0:13:23 > 0:13:27One 18th-century author's story of an explorer
0:13:27 > 0:13:30enduring a lot of type two fun has become
0:13:30 > 0:13:34one of the most influential works of literature ever written,
0:13:34 > 0:13:39and it would ultimately inspire utopian change in the real world.
0:13:43 > 0:13:49"I slept sounder than I ever remember having done in my life,
0:13:49 > 0:13:52"for when I awakened it was just daylight.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57"I attempted to rise, but I wasn't able to stir.
0:13:57 > 0:14:02"I found that my arms and my legs were strongly fastened on each side
0:14:02 > 0:14:05"to the ground. In a little time,
0:14:05 > 0:14:10"I felt something alive moving on my left leg.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13"Bending my eyes downwards,
0:14:13 > 0:14:18"I perceived there to be a human creature not six inches tall.
0:14:18 > 0:14:24"In the meantime, I felt at least 40 more of the same kind
0:14:24 > 0:14:26"following the first.
0:14:26 > 0:14:31"I was in the utmost astonishment and I roared loud.
0:14:33 > 0:14:36"And then they all ran away in fright."
0:14:39 > 0:14:42- Where were we?- In Lilliput?
0:14:42 > 0:14:45- Exactly.- What's the special thing about Lilliput?
0:14:45 > 0:14:48- Yeah, Abdul?- Everyone was very small and then, like,
0:14:48 > 0:14:50the trees are like that big.
0:14:50 > 0:14:51At Seven Stories,
0:14:51 > 0:14:54the National Centre For Children's Literature in Newcastle -
0:14:54 > 0:14:56a little utopia in itself -
0:14:56 > 0:15:00Matthew Grenby's running a workshop for local schoolchildren,
0:15:00 > 0:15:05exploring Jonathan Swift's work and our love of fantastical worlds.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09Can you think of any books that you've read where there are other made-up lands?
0:15:09 > 0:15:11- Harry Potter. - Oh, Harry Potter, interesting.
0:15:11 > 0:15:13- Hogwarts. - Hogwarts, that doesn't exist?
0:15:13 > 0:15:14- No.- Are you sure?- Yeah.
0:15:14 > 0:15:16- Yeah? Anywhere else? - Alice In Wonderland?
0:15:16 > 0:15:19Alice In Wonderland! So, Wonderland, that doesn't exist either.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22One thing that we thought we'd ask you to do is make up a place
0:15:22 > 0:15:24which is different from your normal life.
0:15:24 > 0:15:26I'm just interested to see how it would actually look.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34- So, it's always sunny in this world, is it?- Yeah.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36Uh-huh. And that's what makes the trees grow so well?
0:15:36 > 0:15:37- Yeah.- It turns them happy.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40There's no cars. You've just got to walk everywhere.
0:15:40 > 0:15:42Ah. What's this here?
0:15:42 > 0:15:44It's a town on a flower.
0:15:44 > 0:15:45A town on a flower?
0:15:45 > 0:15:49- Mm-hm.- Wow.- So all the celebrities live on the petals.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51- Right, and who lives in the middle? - Just normal people.
0:15:51 > 0:15:54So is it better to be a celebrity or a normal person?
0:15:54 > 0:15:55Um...a celebrity.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00While Thomas More wrote Utopia for a narrow audience -
0:16:00 > 0:16:02the erudite Tudor ruling class -
0:16:02 > 0:16:05what made Gulliver's Travels so enduring
0:16:05 > 0:16:08is that Swift aimed it at a much broader readership,
0:16:08 > 0:16:10empowering them to dream.
0:16:14 > 0:16:16He is doing something really remarkable with it -
0:16:16 > 0:16:20he is making it a much more approachable kind of utopia
0:16:20 > 0:16:23than there has been before. He's putting in these little people,
0:16:23 > 0:16:25the Lilliputians, he's putting in the big people,
0:16:25 > 0:16:27all of the strange fantasy inventions
0:16:27 > 0:16:29which give it a new kind of life, I think,
0:16:29 > 0:16:31and make it available for a much bigger audience.
0:16:31 > 0:16:34So, as soon as Gulliver's Travels comes out, everybody's reading it,
0:16:34 > 0:16:37whether they're aristocrats at court or,
0:16:37 > 0:16:39we're told, children in schools.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42It's obviously written by a man who has an agenda.
0:16:42 > 0:16:44What are his politics?
0:16:44 > 0:16:47By this stage, Swift has been on a bit of a political journey
0:16:47 > 0:16:50and he's now a Tory. Not in the modern sense a Tory, maybe -
0:16:50 > 0:16:54he's someone who has a real sympathy for those who are left out of power.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59To me, it's a defining element of utopian fiction,
0:16:59 > 0:17:01that it has an agenda.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05Jonathan Swift made his principles clear in the preface to his story,
0:17:05 > 0:17:08where he claimed that the bulk of the people were...
0:17:08 > 0:17:11Forced to live miserably by labouring every day
0:17:11 > 0:17:14for small wages to make a few live plentifully.
0:17:15 > 0:17:19In utopias, there are often a lot of rules to make sure that everybody
0:17:19 > 0:17:23behaves in the right way so that the whole society functions really well.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26So, could you guys come up with some rules about your own perfect worlds?
0:17:29 > 0:17:33With his idea of escaping into extraordinary worlds,
0:17:33 > 0:17:37Jonathan Swift arguably invented children's literature
0:17:37 > 0:17:42and, just as importantly, he put utopian dreams into the heart of it.
0:17:44 > 0:17:47Some of the very first children's books that are published
0:17:47 > 0:17:48in the 1740s and the 1750s,
0:17:48 > 0:17:51so just a couple of decades after Gulliver's Travels,
0:17:51 > 0:17:53they pick up on this idea of big and small,
0:17:53 > 0:17:55which is embodied in the word "Lilliput",
0:17:55 > 0:17:57and you have The Lilliputian Magazine -
0:17:57 > 0:18:00the first magazine written for children, 1751-1752,
0:18:00 > 0:18:02which has taken that word from Swift.
0:18:02 > 0:18:04It's a really interesting publication.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07It has poetry in it, it has riddles,
0:18:07 > 0:18:11it has all sorts of miscellaneous contents, including -
0:18:11 > 0:18:13and this is what I find so fascinating -
0:18:13 > 0:18:15three or four utopian stories,
0:18:15 > 0:18:18little travel narratives which are rather like what's happened in
0:18:18 > 0:18:21Gulliver's Travels and which are going to take these young readers
0:18:21 > 0:18:25to some really extraordinary places, governed by extraordinary rules.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28In your perfect world, are there any rules that people have to obey?
0:18:28 > 0:18:34Yeah, don't argue - discuss. And if you're sad, be happy.
0:18:34 > 0:18:36And what about this one I can see there?
0:18:36 > 0:18:38No-one's allowed not to like football?
0:18:38 > 0:18:39- Yeah. - THEY LAUGH
0:18:39 > 0:18:44If anyone tries to be more important than other people,
0:18:44 > 0:18:47they're not allowed to be more important - everyone's equal.
0:18:47 > 0:18:52The Lilliputian Magazine's utopian stories are each about how a child
0:18:52 > 0:18:54takes over an island kingdom
0:18:54 > 0:18:57and rules it according to their own edicts
0:18:57 > 0:18:58to make it a better place.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03One of them was The History Of The Mercolians,
0:19:03 > 0:19:07about a little boy who manages to save a corrupt society
0:19:07 > 0:19:11by leading his people to a new island and putting in his own rules
0:19:11 > 0:19:14to make it a much more virtuous country.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17And the remarkable thing about that is that in this new country,
0:19:17 > 0:19:19there's a radical redistribution of property.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22"All inhabitants, every four years,
0:19:22 > 0:19:25"are to bring their money into the public treasury,
0:19:25 > 0:19:30"from which an equal distribution was made again."
0:19:30 > 0:19:33That sounds a bit like some of your ideas,
0:19:33 > 0:19:35about everybody being equal.
0:19:35 > 0:19:36- Don't you think?- Yeah.
0:19:38 > 0:19:43Stories like this in The Lilliputian Magazine had real impact,
0:19:43 > 0:19:47seeding revolutionary ideas among a new generation of thinkers
0:19:47 > 0:19:52living at a time of intellectual and political ferment.
0:19:52 > 0:19:55In the late 18th century, the shock of the French Revolution
0:19:55 > 0:19:58reverberated through Britain's stratified society.
0:20:01 > 0:20:04This was a time when industrialisation was creating
0:20:04 > 0:20:08"dark Satanic mills" and William Blake dreamed of a spiritual utopia,
0:20:08 > 0:20:12a "Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land".
0:20:14 > 0:20:18One young reader of The Lilliputian Magazine, perhaps more influenced by
0:20:18 > 0:20:21its writings than any other, was Thomas Spence.
0:20:21 > 0:20:24This radical political firebrand
0:20:24 > 0:20:27was born into a poor family in Newcastle.
0:20:27 > 0:20:29He had 18 brothers and sisters
0:20:29 > 0:20:33and he actually lifted whole sections of The Lilliputian Magazine
0:20:33 > 0:20:37and used them directly in his own radical political writings.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42For Spence, the route to utopia on earth lay,
0:20:42 > 0:20:46perhaps unsurprisingly for a kid from such a big family,
0:20:46 > 0:20:50in gathering resources and sharing them.
0:20:50 > 0:20:52For him, it was all about commonsing.
0:20:55 > 0:20:59The concept of the commons, the ideal of shared ownership
0:20:59 > 0:21:03by a community, is, I think, a vital but often overlooked strand
0:21:03 > 0:21:04of utopian thought.
0:21:06 > 0:21:11We take it for granted today, but common land, like much public space,
0:21:11 > 0:21:13has had to be fought for tooth and nail.
0:21:18 > 0:21:21This is Newcastle's Town Moor,
0:21:21 > 0:21:251,000 acres of rural space slam in the middle of urban Newcastle.
0:21:27 > 0:21:30It might look peaceful nowadays,
0:21:30 > 0:21:31but in 1771,
0:21:31 > 0:21:36this was the battleground that fired Thomas Spence's utopian politics.
0:21:37 > 0:21:40When landowners threatened to enclose the moor,
0:21:40 > 0:21:42Spence rallied the local freemen
0:21:42 > 0:21:45to campaign for common ownership of the land.
0:21:48 > 0:21:51The freemen wished to see the people of Newcastle
0:21:51 > 0:21:55enjoy sole and several grazing rights in perpetuity
0:21:55 > 0:21:59by being able to lead their animals up the hill and onto the moor
0:21:59 > 0:22:00for the summer season.
0:22:01 > 0:22:04Spence clearly did ignite the debate,
0:22:04 > 0:22:09was provocative, and he did generate the thinking behind a common.
0:22:09 > 0:22:11And they actually succeeded?
0:22:11 > 0:22:13It took a week in Parliament
0:22:13 > 0:22:16and they came back with the Town Moor Act, 1774.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19They were hailed as heroes
0:22:19 > 0:22:22and it's led to where we are today.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25Well, today, a quarter of a millennium later,
0:22:25 > 0:22:30and there are still cows being grazed on the moor by freemen.
0:22:30 > 0:22:32I mean, that's quite a victory.
0:22:32 > 0:22:37It's tremendous, but it is part of the culture in this city.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41The Town Moor is the prized asset. It's the city lung.
0:22:45 > 0:22:48After helping to create a little utopia in Newcastle,
0:22:48 > 0:22:50Spence scaled up his campaign,
0:22:50 > 0:22:54thumbing his nose at the grandest landowner in Britain -
0:22:54 > 0:22:57His Majesty, King George III himself.
0:23:44 > 0:23:46That's Thomas Spence's alternative national anthem.
0:23:48 > 0:23:50In his championing of the poor,
0:23:50 > 0:23:54Spence dreamed of commonsing not just land, but education and money.
0:23:57 > 0:24:02This is a really, really important historical object.
0:24:02 > 0:24:05It's a 1797 cartwheel penny
0:24:05 > 0:24:07and with this object,
0:24:07 > 0:24:11Spence saw an incredible opportunity to get his message,
0:24:11 > 0:24:15his utopian vision, out to the masses.
0:24:15 > 0:24:20200 million of these were issued in the 1790s by the Crown.
0:24:20 > 0:24:24The first time Britons owned an identical image of Britannia and,
0:24:24 > 0:24:27of course, of King George.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30So what Spence did was he took them
0:24:30 > 0:24:33and he counter-stamped them with his message.
0:24:35 > 0:24:37It read,
0:24:37 > 0:24:39"No landlords, you fools,
0:24:39 > 0:24:40"Spence's plan for ever."
0:24:42 > 0:24:45He sent thousands of these coins back into circulation.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51His plan was utterly visionary.
0:24:52 > 0:24:55And for having it, conceiving of it,
0:24:55 > 0:24:59he found himself repeatedly in prison, and repeatedly,
0:24:59 > 0:25:02he defended the principles he dedicated his life to.
0:25:04 > 0:25:09The King thought he'd issued a propagandist message to the people,
0:25:09 > 0:25:13Spence took it and issued a utopian vision to the people.
0:25:20 > 0:25:23Thomas Spence died in 1814 in the same poverty
0:25:23 > 0:25:25into which he had been born.
0:25:26 > 0:25:28If he was alive today,
0:25:28 > 0:25:31I'd like to imagine that he'd be a digital rights campaigner...
0:25:33 > 0:25:36..because in cyberspace, his idea of the commons remains
0:25:36 > 0:25:38a powerful, if contested, concept.
0:25:41 > 0:25:44Here, the commons is no longer about shared land, of course,
0:25:44 > 0:25:46but about shared ideas.
0:25:48 > 0:25:51I'm going to try to explain how it is that the internet
0:25:51 > 0:25:55takes Thomas Spence's thinking about the commons on to a whole new level.
0:25:55 > 0:25:59In the words of George Bernard Shaw, that great Irish playwright,
0:25:59 > 0:26:02you can think of it like this...
0:26:02 > 0:26:04If I've got an apple and you've got an apple
0:26:04 > 0:26:07and we exchange our apples,
0:26:07 > 0:26:10we both end up with one apple.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13But if I have an idea and you have an idea
0:26:13 > 0:26:14and we exchange ideas,
0:26:14 > 0:26:17we both end up with two ideas.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25The concept of a commons of ideas and knowledge on the internet
0:26:25 > 0:26:27is championed today by Wikipedia.
0:26:32 > 0:26:36In Berlin, hundreds of Wikipedia editors from across the world
0:26:36 > 0:26:38are holding a convention.
0:26:38 > 0:26:41I think of this as a kind of UN of knowledge.
0:26:41 > 0:26:44They're sharing ideas and bravely fighting for free speech
0:26:44 > 0:26:48in their time, just as Spence did in his.
0:27:06 > 0:27:10It's really just thousands of people trying to get things right,
0:27:10 > 0:27:14so that what's being presented on Wikipedia is the truth.
0:27:17 > 0:27:21The crowd-made online encyclopaedia is nothing if not ambitious
0:27:21 > 0:27:23in its utopian dream -
0:27:23 > 0:27:27for every human to freely share in the sum of all knowledge.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31With 18 billion visits every month,
0:27:31 > 0:27:3340 million articles
0:27:33 > 0:27:35in almost 300 languages...
0:27:37 > 0:27:41..and around 120,000 regular volunteer editors,
0:27:41 > 0:27:44Wikipedia is arguably one of humanity's
0:27:44 > 0:27:45greatest collective efforts.
0:27:47 > 0:27:49So, are you ready to edit?
0:27:49 > 0:27:53- I'm ready.- You're ready. So, you're going to click the edit.
0:27:53 > 0:27:57Executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, Katherine Maher,
0:27:57 > 0:28:01is helping me to become a Wikipedian.
0:28:01 > 0:28:04I'm going to go for something I know a bit about -
0:28:04 > 0:28:05the French Revolution.
0:28:07 > 0:28:10I was hoping there might be missing references, but I'm seeing...
0:28:10 > 0:28:13There are some missing references in this section.
0:28:13 > 0:28:15That looks like something that we could do.
0:28:15 > 0:28:17I want the Mission: Impossible music.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23Oh, what have I done? I've made a shambles of this.
0:28:23 > 0:28:25I really have made a shambles of this. You see...
0:28:25 > 0:28:27We'll be able to edit it.
0:28:27 > 0:28:30There's an important lesson here, which is - concentrate.
0:28:30 > 0:28:32VOICEOVER: Here we have a commons,
0:28:32 > 0:28:34but is this commons a virtual utopia?
0:28:34 > 0:28:36Is it really as smooth-running,
0:28:36 > 0:28:39democratic and idealistic as it appears to be?
0:28:42 > 0:28:45In practice, it would seem impossible for such a model to work,
0:28:45 > 0:28:49that you could ask people to write some sort of common sense
0:28:49 > 0:28:52of knowledge, come to consensus on difficult issues
0:28:52 > 0:28:55and that anybody could edit it, right, and that wouldn't fall prey
0:28:55 > 0:28:57to sort of vandalism or other problems.
0:28:57 > 0:29:01But the reality is that Wikipedia works and it works remarkably well
0:29:01 > 0:29:03and it works in 300 different languages,
0:29:03 > 0:29:05with all of these people from all over the globe.
0:29:05 > 0:29:08So I think there is something in there that is about sort of
0:29:08 > 0:29:10an optimism and a generosity of spirit
0:29:10 > 0:29:12that speaks to our better nature.
0:29:12 > 0:29:15Are there any topics that you could imagine
0:29:15 > 0:29:17that would not be worthy of coverage?
0:29:17 > 0:29:21Oh, Wikipedians decide that sort of thing every single day.
0:29:21 > 0:29:24Wikipedians determine what's notable and what's not and it's not
0:29:24 > 0:29:27necessarily the same thing as what's famous and what's not.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30You could have notable things in Wikipedia that no-one...that only
0:29:30 > 0:29:32five people have ever heard of,
0:29:32 > 0:29:34but it's important in some way to human knowledge.
0:29:34 > 0:29:37And then you could have things that are essentially ephemera,
0:29:37 > 0:29:39that are here today and gone tomorrow.
0:29:39 > 0:29:40Is that, in any way,
0:29:40 > 0:29:43pointing towards the sort of tension within the organisation,
0:29:43 > 0:29:45between those who want to include more?
0:29:45 > 0:29:48Yes, we actually call them inclusionists and deletionists...
0:29:48 > 0:29:50- OK.- ..and there is a strong tendency...
0:29:50 > 0:29:54Most Wikipedians have a tendency one way or another. I'm an inclusionist.
0:29:54 > 0:29:56I believe that the more things that we have that are available
0:29:56 > 0:29:59for people to learn from, the more we represent sort of the truth
0:29:59 > 0:30:01of the world around us.
0:30:01 > 0:30:05I kind of imagine Wikipedia as being a utopian community.
0:30:05 > 0:30:10- Mm-hm.- Which is to say, it has no physical place,
0:30:10 > 0:30:14but it's definitely part of a drive to make the world better.
0:30:14 > 0:30:16I think there's a utopian aspect to what we believe,
0:30:16 > 0:30:19that free knowledge should be available for all,
0:30:19 > 0:30:21that everyone should be able to participate in it,
0:30:21 > 0:30:23not just consume it,
0:30:23 > 0:30:27and that we should reach every single person on the planet.
0:30:27 > 0:30:30What really strikes me about Katherine Maher's vision
0:30:30 > 0:30:33for Wikipedia is the notion of equal access and equal rights
0:30:33 > 0:30:35for everyone on the planet.
0:30:39 > 0:30:41In other words, equality.
0:30:43 > 0:30:44Alongside the commons,
0:30:44 > 0:30:49the ideal of equality is a vital pillar of much utopian thinking.
0:30:52 > 0:30:55People often assume that equality is something humanity
0:30:55 > 0:30:58has come up with rather recently, but in fact,
0:30:58 > 0:31:02the struggle for equality takes us deeper still into utopian dreams.
0:31:08 > 0:31:12Let us make this conference the beginning of a stage in our quest
0:31:12 > 0:31:15for making democracy the thing it should be
0:31:15 > 0:31:17and should have been 200 years ago.
0:31:17 > 0:31:22This is the time that we will make women and men share equally.
0:31:22 > 0:31:24Thank you very, very much.
0:31:27 > 0:31:29Imagined worlds,
0:31:29 > 0:31:32where different peoples and sexes enjoy equal rights,
0:31:32 > 0:31:33have a long and rich history.
0:31:36 > 0:31:40In 1405, a century before Thomas More
0:31:40 > 0:31:44and more than 500 years before Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch,
0:31:44 > 0:31:48Christine de Pizan wrote The Book Of The City Of Ladies.
0:31:50 > 0:31:52De Pizan extolled women's accomplishments.
0:31:52 > 0:31:57Her allegorical city is a refuge from patriarchy and male dominance
0:31:57 > 0:32:02populated, she writes, by "all women who have loved and do love
0:32:02 > 0:32:05"and will love virtue and morality".
0:32:11 > 0:32:15From the City of Ladies to the City of Angels.
0:32:15 > 0:32:18In Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood's dream factory,
0:32:18 > 0:32:21which has pushed out countless visions
0:32:21 > 0:32:23of alternative better worlds,
0:32:23 > 0:32:27there's a project that fits squarely into the feminist utopian tradition.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33This is a rehearsal of a play that continues the fight
0:32:33 > 0:32:37for gender equality by exploring how pregnant women are marginalised.
0:32:44 > 0:32:48The Bumps is a play that's written specifically for a cast
0:32:48 > 0:32:53of three pregnant actors at three different stages of pregnancy.
0:32:53 > 0:32:58The piece is a way to create a small economy for pregnant performers
0:32:58 > 0:32:59in the absence of one.
0:32:59 > 0:33:01And it felt really good for me.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04It's very moving to watch you guys work together, cos I feel like...
0:33:04 > 0:33:09Playwright Rachel Kauder Nalebuff's avant-garde play is about more than
0:33:09 > 0:33:12giving an opportunity to pregnant actors,
0:33:12 > 0:33:14it's also a provocative feminist critique
0:33:14 > 0:33:18of why that opportunity doesn't usually exist.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23The hope is that watching pregnant actors on stage makes everyone
0:33:23 > 0:33:26start to wonder, "Why have I never seen this before?
0:33:26 > 0:33:28"And not just in the theatre,
0:33:28 > 0:33:31"but what else is broken about our current world
0:33:31 > 0:33:33"that I'm now suddenly realising is broken
0:33:33 > 0:33:37"because I've just assumed that pregnant women are invisible
0:33:37 > 0:33:39"and don't participate in society?"
0:33:42 > 0:33:44Almost everything I know, I've taught myself.
0:33:44 > 0:33:46Yeah, discover it.
0:33:46 > 0:33:48How to walk down the street.
0:33:49 > 0:33:52How to bleed...
0:33:52 > 0:33:56There's a bell hooks quote that I really love, which is that
0:33:56 > 0:33:59"art should do more than show us the world as is,
0:33:59 > 0:34:02"it should show us what the world could be",
0:34:02 > 0:34:06and so something that I really love about utopian art
0:34:06 > 0:34:09is that it acknowledges the reality.
0:34:09 > 0:34:13You know, it's not dreamy, la-la, oblivious to what's going on
0:34:13 > 0:34:16because, by creating a solution,
0:34:16 > 0:34:18or an experimental solution,
0:34:18 > 0:34:22you're also reflecting on something you're dissatisfied with.
0:34:28 > 0:34:32I just want someone in my life, you know?
0:34:34 > 0:34:37And this feels so different from meeting.
0:34:37 > 0:34:42Why do you think there's a really urgent need to be thinking about,
0:34:42 > 0:34:44talking about, feminist utopias now?
0:34:44 > 0:34:50The feminist approach to utopia is really crucial because what it does
0:34:50 > 0:34:56is it rejects the idea that utopia is the product of one man's genius,
0:34:56 > 0:35:00or anybody's genius, and that, actually, utopia...
0:35:01 > 0:35:04..requires a multiplicity of minds,
0:35:04 > 0:35:07and the theatre, to me, is the natural place to explore
0:35:07 > 0:35:11utopian thinking in a feminist way because it's so collaborative.
0:35:11 > 0:35:14OK, let's play through again, and what if you used more space?
0:35:14 > 0:35:16- Yeah.- Within the space.
0:35:16 > 0:35:18And you can also allow yourself to...
0:35:18 > 0:35:23It's about realising the patriarchy is limiting for all of us,
0:35:23 > 0:35:28it traps everyone, and that, if you have fair pay,
0:35:28 > 0:35:32if you have affordable childcare, if you have sane labour practices,
0:35:32 > 0:35:36these are things that make the world a better place for everybody.
0:35:36 > 0:35:41If you can improve the world for the most marginalised population,
0:35:41 > 0:35:45it's a key to how it can get better...for all of us.
0:35:47 > 0:35:51The more I explore it, the more I am struck by how
0:35:51 > 0:35:54disruptive utopian art like Bumps can be,
0:35:54 > 0:35:58helping us re-engage with the problems in the real world,
0:35:58 > 0:36:01giving us a glimpse of a way towards a better future.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09This has never been more so than in the 1960s,
0:36:09 > 0:36:12a time of utopian optimism perhaps like no other.
0:36:14 > 0:36:18Alongside experiments with values and chemical stimulants,
0:36:18 > 0:36:21the 1960s was also the moment
0:36:21 > 0:36:24when explorers started to look for utopia
0:36:24 > 0:36:28not on the other side of the world, but in space.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34# Hey, Mr Spaceman
0:36:34 > 0:36:36# Won't you please take me along?
0:36:36 > 0:36:39# I won't do anything wrong... #
0:36:39 > 0:36:44The exploration of space is one of the great adventures of all time.
0:36:44 > 0:36:46We choose to go to the moon.
0:36:46 > 0:36:51We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things
0:36:51 > 0:36:54not because they are easy but because they are hard.
0:36:57 > 0:37:02Space exploration launched a new wave of utopian storytelling
0:37:02 > 0:37:06nowhere more powerfully than via the new medium of television.
0:37:07 > 0:37:11Setting their stories in space, television writers could smuggle
0:37:11 > 0:37:14daring and subversive futures under the radar
0:37:14 > 0:37:17and see them broadcast into millions of living rooms.
0:37:18 > 0:37:22One series in particular was hugely influential
0:37:22 > 0:37:25in tackling the issue of racial equality.
0:37:34 > 0:37:36This one I like the most.
0:37:36 > 0:37:42They caught the essence of who I am in this picture.
0:37:42 > 0:37:45- Lieutenant Uhura. - SHE CHUCKLES
0:37:45 > 0:37:48- These are original publicity shots? - Yes.
0:37:48 > 0:37:52Nichelle Nichols played Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek,
0:37:52 > 0:37:57her role on the bridge of the USS Enterprise inherently utopian
0:37:57 > 0:38:00as she sought to communicate in hundreds of alien languages.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04A signal, Captain.
0:38:04 > 0:38:06It's very weak. It's Balok.
0:38:06 > 0:38:09It's a distress signal to the Fesarius.
0:38:09 > 0:38:11We might smile today at the cardboard sets
0:38:11 > 0:38:13and primitive special effects,
0:38:13 > 0:38:16but in Star Trek we see a coming together
0:38:16 > 0:38:18of so many utopian elements.
0:38:18 > 0:38:20- Any reply?- Negative. The signal is growing weak.
0:38:22 > 0:38:24Sir, I doubt if the mother ship could have heard it.
0:38:24 > 0:38:28What's intriguing is that it's an escapist entertainment,
0:38:28 > 0:38:30like Gulliver's Travels.
0:38:30 > 0:38:32There's a crew in which men and women are equal
0:38:32 > 0:38:36and they strive for peace in a galactic commons.
0:38:36 > 0:38:40This is the Captain speaking. First Federation vessel is in distress.
0:38:40 > 0:38:42We're preparing to board it.
0:38:42 > 0:38:46There are lives at stake - by our standards, alien life,
0:38:46 > 0:38:49but lives nevertheless. Captain out.
0:38:49 > 0:38:53This was also an imagined utopia that set out to change reality.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry,
0:38:56 > 0:39:01was making a statement on the struggle for civil rights in America
0:39:01 > 0:39:04by writing a black officer onto the bridge of the Enterprise.
0:39:06 > 0:39:10He was one of the most brilliant men on the planet
0:39:10 > 0:39:15and if somebody came up and said, "That doesn't make sense,"
0:39:15 > 0:39:17he'd hold a conference with them,
0:39:17 > 0:39:22and he said, "That comes from your limited point of view.
0:39:24 > 0:39:27"I'm talking about the big picture."
0:39:27 > 0:39:29What were his ideals like?
0:39:29 > 0:39:32In a word, "We are one."
0:39:32 > 0:39:33Your performances are so strong,
0:39:33 > 0:39:36partly because you really feel the message...
0:39:36 > 0:39:38- Exactly. - ..that Gene Roddenberry's sharing.
0:39:38 > 0:39:39Absolutely.
0:39:39 > 0:39:44Because we were doing something that we really believed in
0:39:44 > 0:39:45and you had something...
0:39:47 > 0:39:50..to hold on to, to hold up.
0:39:50 > 0:39:52This is where I'm coming from.
0:39:55 > 0:39:58In an episode called Plato's Stepchildren,
0:39:58 > 0:40:01the series boldly went where American television had so far
0:40:01 > 0:40:05feared to go with the first interracial kiss on screen.
0:40:08 > 0:40:10I'm so frightened, Captain.
0:40:11 > 0:40:12I'm so very frightened.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16That's the way they want you to feel.
0:40:16 > 0:40:18Makes them think that they're alive.
0:40:18 > 0:40:22Kirk and Uhura's dialogue, ostensibly about telekinetic aliens,
0:40:22 > 0:40:26can be interpreted as a commentary on white supremacists.
0:40:34 > 0:40:40Kirk, as I recall, he's like, you know, like this,
0:40:40 > 0:40:41and he said,
0:40:41 > 0:40:44"I told you I'd get you sooner or later!"
0:40:44 > 0:40:46THEY LAUGH
0:40:47 > 0:40:49Did you realise when you shot that kiss
0:40:49 > 0:40:52how long it would be remembered for?
0:40:52 > 0:40:55This enormously important, historical TV kiss?
0:40:55 > 0:40:58Oh. Oh, yes. Yes, yes.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01- And interracial. - Yeah, exactly.
0:41:01 > 0:41:04And they said, when the kiss went on, you know,
0:41:04 > 0:41:06this was an interracial thing,
0:41:06 > 0:41:08and I simply said...
0:41:09 > 0:41:13"Yeah, cos that's what my whole family is."
0:41:13 > 0:41:15They wrote my life.
0:41:17 > 0:41:20Nichelle considered quitting the show early on because she worried
0:41:20 > 0:41:22Uhura didn't have enough to do,
0:41:22 > 0:41:26but she was convinced to continue by Dr Martin Luther King,
0:41:26 > 0:41:29who saw the significance of a black female role model
0:41:29 > 0:41:32being beamed into American living rooms.
0:41:34 > 0:41:36I have a dream
0:41:36 > 0:41:38that one day on the red hills of Georgia...
0:41:40 > 0:41:45..the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners
0:41:45 > 0:41:49will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
0:41:49 > 0:41:50I have a dream.
0:41:53 > 0:41:55Do I gather that you recognise me?
0:41:55 > 0:41:58I recognise what you APPEAR to be.
0:41:58 > 0:42:02Martin Luther King's utopian dream shines through a Star Trek episode
0:42:02 > 0:42:05in which the crew beam Abraham Lincoln onto the ship.
0:42:06 > 0:42:09And there's a telling exchange with Uhura.
0:42:11 > 0:42:12Excuse me, Captain Kirk?
0:42:12 > 0:42:14- Yes, Uhura.- Mr Scott...
0:42:14 > 0:42:15What a charming Negress.
0:42:17 > 0:42:20Oh, forgive me, my dear.
0:42:20 > 0:42:24I know that in my time some use that term as a description of property.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27But why should I object to that term, sir?
0:42:27 > 0:42:30You see, in our century, we've learned not to fear words.
0:42:32 > 0:42:35May I present our communications officer, Lieutenant Uhura?
0:42:35 > 0:42:38The foolishness of my century had me apologising
0:42:38 > 0:42:40where no offence was given.
0:42:40 > 0:42:42We've each learned to be delighted with what we are.
0:42:44 > 0:42:49Dr King was a man who preached that we should not see differences
0:42:49 > 0:42:51- between races...- That's right.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54- ..and that we should love one another.- Yes.
0:42:54 > 0:42:56Do you feel that Dr King's message
0:42:56 > 0:42:59was really quite like Star Trek's message?
0:42:59 > 0:43:01Yes, very much.
0:43:02 > 0:43:04That's why he was a Trekker.
0:43:04 > 0:43:06SHE LAUGHS
0:43:06 > 0:43:09He was, you know, and he made no bones about it.
0:43:09 > 0:43:12He was so pleased that we were
0:43:12 > 0:43:14getting what he meant.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21Utopian visions like Star Trek act as a beacon.
0:43:21 > 0:43:23They're crucial in criticising the present
0:43:23 > 0:43:26so as to mark the way towards a better future.
0:43:26 > 0:43:30But there's a flip side to utopian thinking -
0:43:30 > 0:43:32dystopia.
0:43:32 > 0:43:36Dystopian literature reminds us that hard-won gains can be lost,
0:43:36 > 0:43:40dreams like equality and shared ownership can go out of the window.
0:43:41 > 0:43:46Dystopias warn us we must beware humanity's darker,
0:43:46 > 0:43:50authoritarian side if we're ever to reach a better place.
0:43:56 > 0:44:01Just outside Vilnius in Lithuania, I'm being interrogated by the KGB
0:44:01 > 0:44:05in an immersive and very disorientating theatre experience.
0:44:06 > 0:44:09They call it 1984 - The Survival Drama
0:44:09 > 0:44:12after George Orwell's classic dystopian novel
0:44:12 > 0:44:13about the Big Brother state.
0:44:17 > 0:44:20This three-hour performance, set 20 feet underground
0:44:20 > 0:44:25in a disused nuclear bunker, distils the Soviet experience
0:44:25 > 0:44:27into a grim, unremitting dystopia.
0:44:34 > 0:44:35HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN
0:44:37 > 0:44:41The creators, for whom the Soviet experience is recent memory,
0:44:41 > 0:44:45believe you can't just read about dystopia, you have to feel it.
0:44:47 > 0:44:49Why do you put people through this?
0:44:49 > 0:44:54Just to make people understand how living in Soviet Union was like.
0:44:54 > 0:44:56This experience, working here,
0:44:56 > 0:45:00is very important for me because I love free Lithuania,
0:45:00 > 0:45:04I love freedom, and I want to show our society that freedom
0:45:04 > 0:45:08is much more better than totalitarian system.
0:45:13 > 0:45:16Orwell's bleak vision of life under a totalitarian state,
0:45:16 > 0:45:18still a bestseller today...
0:45:18 > 0:45:20OFFICER SPEAKS RUSSIAN
0:45:20 > 0:45:22..is a recurring metaphor.
0:45:22 > 0:45:24The book even has a cameo as a prop,
0:45:24 > 0:45:26or rather, a blunt weapon!
0:45:30 > 0:45:32You imagine George Orwell might have approved.
0:45:32 > 0:45:37As his sinister interrogator O'Brien warns hero Winston Smith...
0:45:37 > 0:45:40If you want a picture of the future,
0:45:40 > 0:45:44imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.
0:45:45 > 0:45:49Astonishingly, it's popular with tourists and school parties,
0:45:49 > 0:45:52who play the role of participant and victim.
0:45:54 > 0:45:56We have a lot of students from schools,
0:45:56 > 0:45:58so we call it live history lesson.
0:45:58 > 0:46:02So three hours they are here, just facing the Soviet Union,
0:46:02 > 0:46:05the discipline there and all the reality.
0:46:05 > 0:46:07BRUSQUE RUSSIAN
0:46:07 > 0:46:09So, how do the schoolkids respond?
0:46:09 > 0:46:10I mean, it's quite an immersive,
0:46:10 > 0:46:14a very immersive and quite a daunting experience.
0:46:14 > 0:46:19So, usually, you know, they come here and they are thinking that
0:46:19 > 0:46:23this is a game, you know? Like, the guys were 17, 16 years old.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26They are coming here and just behaving like, "What...
0:46:26 > 0:46:29"What can you do for me?" you know?
0:46:29 > 0:46:33So, it takes about ten minutes and we've got the silence there,
0:46:33 > 0:46:35you know, and they are kind of scared.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42Perhaps they walk out realising quite how lucky they are
0:46:42 > 0:46:44to have been born when they were born.
0:46:44 > 0:46:48Yes, yes, they go out, usually through this door,
0:46:48 > 0:46:51and they are shouting, "Freedom!" you know?
0:46:51 > 0:46:53And...just like going out of the jail!
0:46:53 > 0:46:54Stretch your hands.
0:46:56 > 0:46:58Spread your fingers.
0:46:58 > 0:46:59Close your eyes.
0:46:59 > 0:47:03It might seem extreme, but the Nineteen Eighty-Four experience
0:47:03 > 0:47:05is hardly outlandish in our culture.
0:47:11 > 0:47:14Where George Orwell led, others have followed.
0:47:16 > 0:47:17In the 18th century,
0:47:17 > 0:47:20young people read the utopian stories of The Lilliputian Magazine.
0:47:21 > 0:47:25Now it's dystopian comics that help them understand their world.
0:47:30 > 0:47:33The 1990s cult Marvel series Transmetropolitan
0:47:33 > 0:47:35is a classic example.
0:47:35 > 0:47:39It imagined a near future of information overload
0:47:39 > 0:47:43in which truth is lost in a morally bankrupt society
0:47:43 > 0:47:45bingeing on a diet of sex and violence.
0:47:47 > 0:47:50Transmetropolitan, the whole hook was,
0:47:50 > 0:47:51when truth is lies,
0:47:51 > 0:47:54who do you look to to bring you what's actually happening?
0:47:54 > 0:47:58Who's your guide through that world? A journalist.
0:47:58 > 0:48:01Transmetropolitan's author, Warren Ellis,
0:48:01 > 0:48:05is one of Britain's most prolific comic book and sci-fi writers.
0:48:05 > 0:48:09For him, the warning about a dark authoritarian future is about
0:48:09 > 0:48:13helping his generally young readership to navigate issues
0:48:13 > 0:48:15of politics and control.
0:48:17 > 0:48:23Reading dystopic fiction in comics can give kids tools to understand
0:48:23 > 0:48:25the way the world is run and letting them know
0:48:25 > 0:48:28that they are not alone in their lack of understanding
0:48:28 > 0:48:30and general horror at the way the world is.
0:48:30 > 0:48:32So, there's this one passage
0:48:32 > 0:48:35that I just think is really staggeringly prescient.
0:48:35 > 0:48:37So, he's broadcasting to the city.
0:48:37 > 0:48:39- Mm.- "Your boss does what he likes.
0:48:39 > 0:48:43"The papers and feedsites that lie to you for the hell of it,
0:48:43 > 0:48:44"they do what they like,
0:48:44 > 0:48:47"and what do you do? You pay them.
0:48:47 > 0:48:49"You must like it
0:48:49 > 0:48:53"when people in authority they never earned lie to you."
0:48:53 > 0:48:56These things are always true in dystopian fiction -
0:48:56 > 0:48:58unearned privilege.
0:48:58 > 0:49:01One of the many little shocks that Winston Smith gets
0:49:01 > 0:49:04in Nineteen Eighty-Four is discovering that O'Brien
0:49:04 > 0:49:06can turn off the telescreens.
0:49:06 > 0:49:10- Mm.- Sudden, unearned, secret privilege.
0:49:10 > 0:49:13The 0.1% were present in Nineteen Eighty-Four,
0:49:13 > 0:49:15just as they're present today.
0:49:15 > 0:49:17You see, I was wondering about this work
0:49:17 > 0:49:21in relation to Nineteen Eighty-Four, of a world where the truth gets lost
0:49:21 > 0:49:24and you don't bother to question it or challenge it.
0:49:24 > 0:49:27This is why Nineteen Eighty-Four was such an important book,
0:49:27 > 0:49:31because it was only two steps away from life at the time.
0:49:31 > 0:49:35It was Anthony Burgess who actually revealed that at one time
0:49:35 > 0:49:37the working title for Nineteen Eighty-Four
0:49:37 > 0:49:38was Nineteen Forty-Eight.
0:49:38 > 0:49:40RICHARD GASPS OK.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43Yeah, it was really very, very close
0:49:43 > 0:49:46to the way Orwell saw the world at the time.
0:49:46 > 0:49:48Nineteen Eighty-Four is one of those books
0:49:48 > 0:49:51that every generation can find a reflection in
0:49:51 > 0:49:54or act to prevent that, or something like that, happening.
0:49:56 > 0:49:58I agree with Warren Ellis.
0:49:58 > 0:50:02I think of dystopian stories as the warning lights of our time.
0:50:09 > 0:50:10And it's striking
0:50:10 > 0:50:14how those warning lights are flashing everywhere these days.
0:50:16 > 0:50:19They're our favourite big-budget movie franchises
0:50:19 > 0:50:21and glossy box-set dramas.
0:50:24 > 0:50:28From a sadistic regime forcing teen gladiators to fight to the death
0:50:28 > 0:50:30in The Hunger Games...
0:50:33 > 0:50:36If I'm going to die, I want to still be me.
0:50:36 > 0:50:38I just can't afford to think like that.
0:50:38 > 0:50:40..to a Christian fundamentalist state
0:50:40 > 0:50:45where the few remaining fertile women are subject to ritualised rape
0:50:45 > 0:50:48to bear children for their male masters in The Handmaid's Tale.
0:50:50 > 0:50:56You girls will serve the leaders and their barren wives.
0:50:56 > 0:50:58You will bear children for them.
0:51:04 > 0:51:10Today's utopian fiction pits a heroic protagonist against a world
0:51:10 > 0:51:14that's inhumane, full of torture and brutality.
0:51:14 > 0:51:19It asks us, how do we hold on to our values in this kind of a space?
0:51:19 > 0:51:21Whereas in the 1960s
0:51:21 > 0:51:25such literature and film-making was optimistic...
0:51:26 > 0:51:30..nowadays it's full of profound fear.
0:51:32 > 0:51:35For me, there can be no bigger fear than the horror of Nazism.
0:51:38 > 0:51:39Continuing to haunt us,
0:51:39 > 0:51:42the Nazi nightmare is being reworked again
0:51:42 > 0:51:45in the drama The Man In The High Castle,
0:51:45 > 0:51:48which asks us not to assume our future is set.
0:51:52 > 0:51:56Amazon's adaptation of Philip K Dick's sci-fi novel
0:51:56 > 0:52:00imagines a 1960s America carved up by Germany and Japan which,
0:52:00 > 0:52:03in this counterfactual world, have won World War II.
0:52:04 > 0:52:06And it was Heydrich who gave the order.
0:52:08 > 0:52:10He was following orders.
0:52:12 > 0:52:15Probably don't even know why he wanted me and Lautz out of the way.
0:52:17 > 0:52:19No, sir, I...
0:52:19 > 0:52:21I don't.
0:52:21 > 0:52:23I didn't think so.
0:52:23 > 0:52:25HE SCREAMS
0:52:30 > 0:52:33This balcony really reminds me of the scene
0:52:33 > 0:52:37where the Obergruppenfuhrer throws his adjutant over the edge,
0:52:37 > 0:52:39this horrifying moment...
0:52:39 > 0:52:43VOICEOVER: Frank Spotnitz developed and produced the series.
0:52:43 > 0:52:47Why does he think dystopias are so popular today?
0:52:47 > 0:52:51My feeling is that we are living in a period of heightened fear, er,
0:52:51 > 0:52:53really since 9/11.
0:52:54 > 0:52:56People are very fearful
0:52:56 > 0:53:01and dystopian storytelling allows them to work through those fears
0:53:01 > 0:53:03in a safe space, an entertaining space.
0:53:03 > 0:53:08Do you think that dystopian fiction and film-making
0:53:08 > 0:53:10is almost cathartic, then?
0:53:10 > 0:53:14I do think, in my small way, I try to tell stories that help us think
0:53:14 > 0:53:17about ourselves and make us think about ourselves.
0:53:17 > 0:53:21The Man In The High Castle, I think, is a story that really invites you
0:53:21 > 0:53:22to look at yourself.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25It's really more about us than about Nazis
0:53:25 > 0:53:28and that's why, especially in the first season,
0:53:28 > 0:53:31they were hardly any Nazis with German accents.
0:53:31 > 0:53:32They were all American Nazis.
0:53:32 > 0:53:36What I was trying to say was, "Look, you have this in you, too."
0:53:37 > 0:53:38Joe!
0:53:40 > 0:53:44- Sieg Heil. - Sieg Heil. Glad you could make it.
0:53:44 > 0:53:46Saw you in the parade on TV. That was really something.
0:53:46 > 0:53:48Yes, it was.
0:53:48 > 0:53:51- Hey, Harry!- Sieg Heil!
0:53:51 > 0:53:52Sieg Heil.
0:53:52 > 0:53:54The Victory in America Day celebration
0:53:54 > 0:53:56at the Smith household...
0:53:56 > 0:53:58- "Sieg Heil."- Yeah!
0:53:58 > 0:54:02That was like Americana. That was like Thanksgiving and, you know,
0:54:02 > 0:54:06saying hello to the neighbour and... That was pretty nice. And, you know,
0:54:06 > 0:54:08John Smith has a really lovely wife and children.
0:54:08 > 0:54:13Oh! Joe, this is Thomas and Amy and Jennifer.
0:54:13 > 0:54:14- Hi, guys. Sieg Heil.- Hi.- Sieg Heil.
0:54:14 > 0:54:19I think you've got to admit that attraction to parts of it.
0:54:19 > 0:54:23You could argue that national socialism was a utopian movement.
0:54:23 > 0:54:25In their mind, they thought they were perfecting man.
0:54:25 > 0:54:27In my mind, that's what makes it evil.
0:54:30 > 0:54:35Hitler's vision of utopia was of a genetically pure master race
0:54:35 > 0:54:37dominating Europe for 1,000 years.
0:54:40 > 0:54:42Please, take a seat.
0:54:42 > 0:54:47One storyline in The Man In The High Castle interrogates this utopia
0:54:47 > 0:54:49by confronting its main Nazi protagonist
0:54:49 > 0:54:52with a terrible personal dilemma.
0:54:52 > 0:54:53This...
0:54:54 > 0:54:56This won't be easy for you to hear.
0:54:56 > 0:54:58Your son has a serious disease.
0:54:59 > 0:55:01Landouzy-Dejerine syndrome.
0:55:01 > 0:55:05He discovers his son has a rare degenerative disease
0:55:05 > 0:55:08and must, according to Nazi protocols, be euthanized.
0:55:09 > 0:55:14That's nonsense. My son is the picture of health.
0:55:14 > 0:55:16I'm afraid he isn't.
0:55:16 > 0:55:19Within months, perhaps a year...
0:55:20 > 0:55:21..there will be paralysis.
0:55:21 > 0:55:23That's a mistake, Doctor.
0:55:25 > 0:55:26You're making a mistake.
0:55:26 > 0:55:28I would never tell you this were I not certain.
0:55:30 > 0:55:36The look on his face of realisation, as he suddenly comes to wrestle with
0:55:36 > 0:55:41the inner human emotional life that he's supposed to entirely suppress
0:55:41 > 0:55:44in the name of the regime, is really striking.
0:55:44 > 0:55:48That character, played brilliantly by Rufus Sewell,
0:55:48 > 0:55:51was an attempt by me to say
0:55:51 > 0:55:55there can be good people who embrace evil ideologies,
0:55:55 > 0:55:59that that actually happens all the time.
0:55:59 > 0:56:04And that storyline of confronting the terminal illness of his own son,
0:56:04 > 0:56:08to me, was a perfect way to force him to face...
0:56:09 > 0:56:12..the evil of the ideology he'd embraced.
0:56:12 > 0:56:16As for medical assistance,
0:56:16 > 0:56:21a syringe and an ampoule of an effective combination.
0:56:21 > 0:56:22Absolutely painless.
0:56:25 > 0:56:28A good dystopian drama is a warning.
0:56:28 > 0:56:32It's a critique of who we are now, saying these are the impulses that
0:56:32 > 0:56:37we are exercising, this is who we will become unless we change path.
0:56:41 > 0:56:43Frank Spotnitz is right, I think.
0:56:43 > 0:56:47The dystopian stories are there to keep us on the righteous path,
0:56:47 > 0:56:50in check, on the way towards a better future.
0:56:51 > 0:56:56That future might seem uncertain in the current climate of fear,
0:56:56 > 0:56:59but it's within our seemingly undaunted search for utopia
0:56:59 > 0:57:01that I find some optimism.
0:57:03 > 0:57:05Utopias spur the human imagination
0:57:05 > 0:57:08and keep us asking the big questions,
0:57:08 > 0:57:11whether as dreams of escape and exploration,
0:57:11 > 0:57:14as campaigns, or as warnings.
0:57:17 > 0:57:20What links these very different visions, it seems to me,
0:57:20 > 0:57:24is our almost innate drive to make the world a better place.
0:57:24 > 0:57:28We imagine utopias through fiction, I think, because they encourage us.
0:57:28 > 0:57:31They speak to the good in us and around us
0:57:31 > 0:57:37of utopian acts of everyday life and of extraordinary kindness.
0:57:37 > 0:57:42If someone falls in the street, just watch as others rush up to help.
0:57:43 > 0:57:48If we're attacked by terrorists, witness our resilience.
0:57:49 > 0:57:52Our desires for utopias is, I think,
0:57:52 > 0:57:55an important part of the human condition,
0:57:55 > 0:58:00the thing that inspires us to keep trying to improve our world.
0:58:04 > 0:58:08In the next episode, from imagination to implementation.
0:58:11 > 0:58:12Radical communities...
0:58:12 > 0:58:14Hi, can I join you?
0:58:14 > 0:58:16..utopian ideologies...
0:58:18 > 0:58:20..grand architectural visions.
0:58:20 > 0:58:25We're declaring war on the slums.
0:58:25 > 0:58:27But is humanity ever really up to the job?