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Beauty of Britain

Series 2

Episode 1: Citroen UXB

Duration: 30 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 Extra

Available for years

No professional care-worker can afford to miss Beauty Olonga's survival guide to Britain – with overheated houses, disappointing church services and world-class charity shops.

Series 2 sees Beauty sent by the Featherdown Agency to provide care for those who need it - and some who don't, but all of whom have relatives with guilty consciences.

Beauty sees herself as an inspiration to other African girls hoping to live the dream in Britain – a land of opportunities. The professional classes are off sick through binge drinking and the rest too lazy to get off the couch to answer the pizza delivery man.

The series breaks the embarrassed silence about what happens to us when we get old and start to lose our faculties. It’s a chaotic, tragi-comedy, from Beauty’s point of view, whose Zimbabwean Shona background has taught her to respect age.

Beauty is sent to look after Sarah, who lives with both her mother and daughter. A perfect, happy modern family, like the kind Beauty has seen in feel-good British movies.

With her own family being very demanding, it is understandable when Beauty begins to get too close.

Written by Christopher Douglas and Nicola Sanderson

Beauty... Jocelyn Jee Esien
Joyce ... Julia McKenzie
Sarah ... Jenny Agutter
Lucy ... Catherine Shepherd
Sally ... Felicity Montagu
Karen ... Nicola Sanderson

Music by The West End Gospel Choir.

Producer : Tilusha Ghelani

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2011. Show less

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