''The Heart of the Angel'' is a documentary made by director/producer

Molly Dineen Molly Dineen (born 7 March 1959) is a television documentary director, cinematographer and producer. One of Britain's most acclaimed documentary filmmakers, Molly is known for her intimate and probing portraits of British individuals and instituti ...

in 1989, before the 1992 renovation of the then 100-year-old

Angel tube station Angel is a London Underground station in the Angel area of the London Borough of Islington. It is on the Bank branch of the Northern line, between King's Cross St. Pancras and Old Street stations, in Travelcard Zone 1. The station was original ...

on the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...

. It was first screened in

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

's ''

40 Minutes ''40 Minutes'' was a BBC TV documentary strand broadcast on BBC Two between 1981 and 1994. Some documentaries in the original series were revisited and updated in a 2006 version, ''Forty Minutes On''. See also * Sixty Minutes (British TV prog ...

'' series on 23 November 1989. The film follows 48 hours in the everyday lives of the people who work in the station, including

foreman Ray Stocker, ticket-seller Derek Perkins, the groups of women called 'fluffers' who clean human hair out of the tracks to avoid the fire hazard, and the gangs of men who work with pickaxes in almost pitch-black conditions to renovate parts of the track in time for the following day. This documentary was given the Documentary Award by the

Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

, and is included in the first volume of ''The Molly Dineen Collection'', released by the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

in 2011.

References

1989 films British documentary films Documentary films about rail transport 1989 documentary films London Underground in popular culture Documentary films about London 1980s English-language films 1980s British films {{UK-documentary-film-stub