Voices Of The Powerless The Complete Series

Oct 3, 2024 5:16 AM

Author:Melvyn Bragg,Melvyn Bragg

Melvyn Bragg follows his long historical exploration of the Routes of English with 'Voices of the Powerless', the BBC Radio 4 series in which he explores the lives of the ordinary working men and women of Britain at critical moments across the last 1,000 years. The Norman Conquest is his starting point, a time when William the Conqueror's 'harrying of the North' affected the poor apprentice, the lowly ploughman and the humble shepherd. He goes on to look at the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 (inspired by a hated Poll Tax) and the religious changes brought about by Henry VIII's Reformation. The so-called 'Plantation' of Ulster, the Siege of Chester, and the plague which ravaged Salisbury in 1627 are later stopping-off points in Bragg's journey, which also finds him traversing the country and speaking to historians and experts about the life of the ordinary citizen in each period. Next Melvyn visits urban Lancashire to explore the warp and weft of the Industrial Revolution to see how the upheavals of the new mechanisation affected workers who found their traditional trades marginalised by the growth of industrialization. After he travels to the historic dockyard of Chatham to explore the life of a seaman in Nelson's navy, he voyages to Tasmania to find out what a sentence of transportation to Van Diemen’s Land really meant to those who survived the journey 'beyond the seas'. As well as the Highland Clearances - still talked of as one of the harshest pieces of social manipulation in Britain's history - we travel to East Yorkshire to discover the little-known story of the Wolds Wagoners, a regiment drawn up by the local landlord from the men on his estate during World War One. Lastly, Melvyn Bragg visits Merthyr Tydfil to look at the plight of the miners in the Depression and how the disastrous effects of the Wall Street Crash, combined with industrial unrest, left towns like Merthyr Tydfil a mere shadow of its former self. First broadcast in 2002, this Complete Series contains all 12 episodes of Series One and Two: 'The Norman Conquest', 'The Peasants' Revolt', 'The Reformation', 'The Plantation of Ireland', 'The English Civil War', 'The Great Plague'; 'The Industrial Revolution', 'The Napoleonic Wars', 'The Colonisation of Australia', 'The Highland Clearances', 'The First World War' and 'Coal Mining and the Depression'. Guidance: due to the archive nature of the recording the sound quality may vary.

Reviews

One for Carry On naysayers as well as the fans, this anniversary insight into a very British world is filled with waspish bon mots, extensive interviews and lots of amusing detail. A comprehensive and warm biography of the key players, as well as the films themselves.

—— Empire

Richard Webber's book is a chronological trawl through the Carry On series covering everything from early successes like Carry On Sergeant, to classics like Carry On up the Khyber ... our most enduring films have been about getting nookie at all costs and the consolations of the biscuit tin. The French got Truffaut, we got Bisto. Bring it on

—— Sunday Times

enjoyable

—— Sunday Telegraph

In this sympathetic, well-researched history, Richard Webber retrieves some of the more lubricious lines lost to the British Board of Censors ... the Carry Ons have become a part of British film history, like Hitchcock and Hammer horror. As vulgar as flock wallpaper, as cheap as fish and chips, they hold a special place in the hearts of young and old alike

—— Telegraph

fascinating

—— GT (Gay Times)

Webber understands the Carry On phenomenon entirely: how it's all about the oddness, the dowdiness, the sheer physical uncomfortableness of the British - and their frank terror of sex, best coped with by laughing at it.

—— Sunday Times

A trip down what's to many of us a happily familiar lane

—— Sunday Telegraph

Sean Wilentz makes us think about Bob Dylan's half-century of work in new ways. Combining a scholar's depth with a sense of mischief appropriate to the subject, Wilentz hears new associations in famous songs and sends us back to listen to Dylan's less familiar music with fresh insights. By focusing on the parts of Dylan's canon that most move him, Wilentz getsstraight to the heart of the matter. If you thought there was nothing new to say about Bob Dylan's impact on America, this book will make you think twice

—— Bill Flanagan, Editorial Director: MTV Networks

Sean Wilentz's beautiful book sets a new standard for the cultural history of popular music in America

—— Leon Wieseltier

Unlike so many Dylan-writer-wannabes and phony 'encyclopedia' compilers, Sean Wilentz makes me feel he was in the room when he chronicles events that I participated in. Finally a breath of fresh words founded in hardcore, intelligent research

—— Al Kooper, musician, record producer and Bob Dylan collaborator

Writing about Bob Dylan's music, and fitting it into the great crazy quilt of American culture, Sean Wilentz sews a whole new critical fabric, part history, part close analysis, and all heart. What he writes, as well as anyone ever has, helps us enlarge Dylan's music by reckoning its roots, its influences, its allusive spiritual contours

—— Jay Cocks, screenwriter for THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and THE GANGS OF NEW YORK

It throws up a wealth of unexpected connections.

—— Ian Thomson , Spectator, Christmas round up

Did you know Bob Dylan loves Eileen Aroon? One of the many facts in Bob Dylan in America.

—— Patrick McCabe , Irish Times, Christmas round up

The result is a broad and brilliantly illuminating appreciation of Dylan as both performer and songwriter up to the present day

—— Belfast News Letter

So charming and so acute that one cannot help forgiving him

—— Daily Express

You need to read this - period

—— Fact

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