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Ifor ap Glyn

Eric Harwood

Nick Watts

The Toilet: An Unspoken History

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16/07/2012

BBC Four - The Toilet: An Unspoken History

Film looking at the role of the toilet in our culture and exploring its social history.

Documentary looking at the role of the toilet in our culture, exploring its social history in Britain and abroad, and finding possible future solutions to global sanitation issues.

We each spend three years of our lives on the toilet, but how happy are we talking about this essential part of our lives? This film challenges that mindset by uncovering its role in our culture and exploring the social history of the toilet in Britain and abroad - as well as exploring many of our cultural toilet taboos. 

Starting in Merida, Spain, with some of the earliest surviving Roman toilets, we journey around the world - from the UK to China, Japan and Bangladesh - visiting toilets, ranging from the historically significant to the beautiful, from the functional and sometimes not-so-functional to the downright bizarre.

Leading our journey is Everyman figure, Welsh poet and presenter Ifor ap Glyn, who has a passionate interest in the toilet, its history and how it has evolved over the centuries, right up to the development of the current design. Finally, there's a glimpse of the future and a possible solution to the global sanitation issues we now face.

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