The BBC East region started on 1st May 1959 as part of the BBC Television Service, before becoming BBC One East.

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The Great Offices of State

Michael Cockerell

James Giles

Martin Wilson

The Great Offices of State: Episode 2: Palace of Dreams

Documentaries

Factual: Politics

Episode 2

Episode 2: Palace of Dreams

Palace of Dreams

BBC Four - The Great Offices of State, Palace of Dreams

Michael Cockerell uses archive and interviews to uncover the world of the Foreign Office.

Michael Cockerell uncovers the secret world of the Foreign Office, blending new footage with rare archive and interviews with present and past foreign secretaries.

Three-part series in which award-winning reporter Michael Cockerell uncovers the secret world of Whitehall, showing what the trio of great offices - Home, Foreign and Treasury - are really like. 

The Foreign Office is the grandest of the three, built in Victorian times to impress foreigners when the British lion still strutted the globe. How the Foreign Office has sought over the years to come to terms with Britain's reduced status in the world makes an often tragicomic tale. 

Cockerell blends fresh access filming, rare and previously unseen archive and interviews with past and present foreign secretaries and their normally camera-shy senior officials. The film tells of the many behind-the-scenes battles in the FO between its mandarins and ministers and against 10 Downing Street. 

Successive prime ministers have regarded the Foreign Office as temperamentally inclined to kow-tow to foreigners and have sought to be their own foreign secretaries - often with disastrous consequences. The film also explores the always-uneasy relationship between the FO and its offshoot, Britain's spy agency, MI6.

BBC Four

Knowledge, arts, music and culture from the UK and the world.

BBC Four reflects arts, music and culture with an ambitious range of intellectually and culturally enriching programmes, taking an expert and in-depth approach to its subjects.

Series going behind the scenes at the Home, Foreign and Treasury Offices

Series in which reporter Michael Cockerell uncovers the secret world of Whitehall, showing what the trio of great offices - Home, Foreign and Treasury - are really like

The BBC West region started on 1st September 1957 as part of the BBC Television Service, before becoming BBC One West.

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The BBC South West region started on 20th April 1961 as part of the BBC Television Service, before becoming BBC One South West.

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The BBC North East & Cumbria region started in 1959 (tbc) as part of the BBC Television Service, before becoming BBC One North East & Cumbria.

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Formerly part of a wider BBC One South East region that included London and part of the South region. Separated from BBC One London 2001-09-03 following reorganisation of the South East region.

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Episode 2: Palace of Dreams

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