Past Forward: A Century of Sound

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Greg Jenner dives deep into the BBC archive to explore what it says about who we are now.

Greg Jenner takes a deep dive into the BBC archive to explore what it can tell us about who we are now.

Marking the Centenary, Past Forward uses a random date generator to alight somewhere in the BBC's vast archive over the past 100 years. Historian Greg Jenner hears an archive clip for the first time at the top of the programme, and uses it as a starting point in a journey towards the present day. The archive captures a century of British life in a unique way -  a history of ordinary people's lives, as well as news of the great events.  Greg uncovers connections through people, places and ideas that link the archive fragment to Britain in 2022, pulling in help from experts and those who remember the time - and sometimes the speakers themselves, decades later - along the way. What he discovers are stories, big and small, that reveal how the people we were have shaped the people we have become.

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Past Forward: A Century of Sound: The Lambeth Walk

The Lambeth Walk

BBC Radio 4 - Past Forward: A Century of Sound, The Lambeth Walk

Greg Jenner dives into the BBC archive to explore what it says about who we are now.

Greg Jenner explores a clip picked at random from the BBC archive in 1939 about a dance craze - The Lambeth Walk.

Hearing a clip from 1939 about the dance craze of the day, the Lambeth Walk, Greg Jenner turns to Stephen Fry for help in finding out what it was and how it brought happiness to a world in crisis, and talks to choreographer Dannielle 'Rhimes' Lecointe about the freedom of collective dance.

Marking the centenary of the BBC, Past Forward uses a random date generator to alight somewhere in the BBC's vast archive over the past 100 years. Public historian Greg Jenner hears an archive clip for the first time at the top of the programme, and uses it as a starting point in a journey towards the present day. The archive captures a century of British life in a unique way -  a history of ordinary people’s lives, as well as news of the great events.  Greg uncovers connections through people, places and ideas that link the archive fragment to Britain in 2022, pulling in help from experts and those who remember the time – and sometimes the speakers themselves, decades later - along the way. What he discovers are stories, big and small, that reveal how the people we were have shaped the people we have become.


Produced by Megan Jones for BBC Wales

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Past Forward: A Century of Sound

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