Over the past sixty years, a university education has gone from being the preserve of the privileged few to an expected rite of passage for more than a million young adults a year. This spectacular expansion transformed the expectations of generations and provided the crucible for everything from sexual liberation to political revolution, and it inspired a unique literary phenomenon rich in controversy and comedy - the campus novel.

This documentary takes a fond look at the growing pains of the university through the eyes of the writers who immortalised it in everything from Brideshead Revisited and Lucky Jim to The History Man and Nice Work, telling the story of how universities were opened to all and of the quest to build an alternative to the ivory towers of Oxbridge out of concrete and glass.

Featuring interviews with David Lodge, Germaine Greer, Laurie Taylor, Frederic Raphael, Arthur Smith and Howard Jacobson. Show less