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Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain

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Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain: Episode 2: The Land of Lost Content

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Episode 2

Episode 2: The Land of Lost Content

The Land of Lost Content

BBC Two - Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain, The Land of Lost Content

The 1950s were a period of apparent calm and prosperity, but many were hungry for change.

Presented by Andrew Marr. The 1950s were a period of apparent calm, order and prosperity for Britain, but much of the populace was hungry for change.

The second programme in the series explodes the popular image of the 1950s as a golden age of order and prosperity, and of lost content. A Conservative government is back in power. The economy appears to be improving. New homes are being built, the age of mass car ownership is dawning and people have money in their pockets. But 1950s Britain is not as calm as it looks, or as strong.

Andrew Marr describes a relentless build-up of pressure from frustrated, resentful people who are hungry for change. This is a Britain of growing racial tensions, of working-class teenagers who don't want to know their place any longer, of CND protesters and a new breed of scathing satirists. It's a country which is learning to laugh at its rulers and starting to distrust them. Especially after their prime minister takes them to war in the Middle East on the basis of a lie.

When a working-class girl called Christine Keeler meets the Secretary of State for War John Profumo in a swimming pool one hot summer's evening in 1961, the closed world of the British establishment collides with the cocky new Britain growing up around it. The sixties spirit of change is in the air and Britain will never be governed in the same way again. This is the fascinating story of the perfect political storm.

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Factual: History

A history of Britain from the end of World War II to the start of the third millennium.

Andrew Marr presents a history of Britain from the end of the Second World War to the start of the third millennium.

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