''Man Alive'' is a
documentary and
current affairs series which ran on
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 ...
between 1965 and 1981. During that time there were nearly 500 programmes tackling a range of social and political issues, both in the UK and abroad.
The series was commissioned by
David Attenborough
Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural histor ...
, while he was
Controller of 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 a ...
between 1965 and 1969. British television journalist and presenter
Esther Rantzen
Dame Esther Louise Rantzen (born 22 June 1940) is an English journalist and television presenter, who presented the BBC television series ''That's Life!'' for 21 years, from 1973 until 1994. She works with various charitable causes, and fou ...
worked on ''Man Alive'' in the mid-1960s. One of the programme's reporters and series editor was
Desmond Wilcox
Desmond John Wilcox (21 May 1931 – 6 September 2000) was a British television producer, documentary filmmaker, journalist and television executive. He worked at the BBC and ITV during his career and was producer of series such as '' This ...
, whom Rantzen later married. Wilcox contributed directly to about 50 ''Man Alive'' programmes. The ''Man Alive'' theme music was composed and played by
Tony Hatch
Anthony Peter Hatch (born 30 June 1939) is an English composer for musical theatre and television. He is also a songwriter, pianist, arranger and producer.
Early life and early career
Hatch was born in Pinner, Middlesex. Encouraged by his mus ...
and his orchestra.
History
The first ''Man Alive'' programme, "The Heart Man", was broadcast on 4 November 1965. It focused on heart surgeon
Michael Ellis DeBakey at
The Methodist Hospital
Houston Methodist Hospital is the flagship quaternary care hospital of Houston Methodist academic medical center. Located in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas, Houston Methodist Hospital was established in 1919 during the height of the ...
in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
. There were a further eight programmes that year, at this stage Wilcox was also the programme's executive producer. Each edition of the programme had a sub-title which reflected its content.
''Man Alive'' returned in 1966 with 48 programmes followed by 51 in 1967. They were expanded in length from thirty to fifty minutes and started to be broadcast in colour. They were shot on 16mm film, sometimes combined with studio discussions or outside broadcasts. The documentary strand covered several stories on sex, the sex industry and exploitation, and in 1967 it broke new ground by showing the first ever bare female breast on British television. For its time, ''Man Alive'' tackled many thought-provoking subjects. The programme also faced criticism, however. Writing in ''The Times'' in 2005,
Paul Hoggart
Paul Hoggart is a British journalist and novelist.
Early life and career
Hoggart spent some years as a further education lecturer at Kingsway College and then Woolwich College in London before moving into journalism as a book reviewer, feature ...
said the "landmark 1960s documentary strand ''Man Alive'' was accused at the time of cynical sensationalism, with producers rejoicing when they got some poor sod to weep on camera."
''Man Alive'' began to push the boundaries further. In 1966, a programme called "Lift up Your Skirt", introduced by
Malcolm Muggeridge
Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge (24 March 1903 – 14 November 1990) was an English journalist and satirist. His father, H. T. Muggeridge, was a socialist politician and one of the early Labour Party Members of Parliament (for Romford, in Essex). In ...
, explored the
Playboy
''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother.
K ...
club scene. In 1967, the series issued a two-part special report called "Consenting Adults" on the issue of male and female homosexuality, the opinion of society towards gay men and lesbians, and possible decriminalisation of male homosexual acts along the lines of the
Wolfenden report
The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden report, after Sir John Wolfenden, the chairman of the committee) was published in the United Kingdom on 4 September 1957 after a suc ...
. In 1971, sex education was the subject for scrutiny in "Sex and Common sense" followed in 1975 by "X-ploitation" which looked at the seedy side of the film industry. The series was broadcast in an era when sex, class and religion were seen as controversial issues.
Many of the films can now be seen as invaluable snapshots of British life in a bygone age. In the early Seventies, episodes ranged from "The Other Woman", which looked at mistresses, to "The Office Party", with all that comes with it. "The Alternative Press" looked at not just ''
Oz'' and ''
IT'' but also small independent community newspapers that were appearing all over Britain to challenge the national newspaper groups with a more moral and intimate attempt at bringing relevant news to people. "Don't Call Us" looked at out-of-work actors, "The Possessed" was a look at suburban housewives involved with the occult, and "Soho" was a leisurely trek around a fast-changing corner of Bohemian London. "The Fallen Idols" looked those who had been to the top and back, two of its subjects being
Bill Maynard
Walter Frederick George Williams (8 October 1928 – 30 March 2018), better known by his stage name Bill Maynard, was an English comedian and actor. He began working in television in the 1950s, notably starring alongside Terry Scott in '' G ...
and
Anthony Steel.
One of the programmes, entitled "The Disc Jockeys", aired on 11 February 1970 and offered a glimpse into the work of Radio One disk jockeys
Tony Blackburn
Anthony Kenneth Blackburn (born 29 January 1943) is an English disc jockey, singer and TV presenter. He first achieved fame broadcasting on the pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s, before joining the BBC, on the BBC L ...
,
Jimmy Young,
Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett (born Maurice James Christopher Cole; 25 December 1944 – 4 April 1995) was an English comedian, radio disc jockey and television presenter. After spells on pirate radio and Radio Luxembourg in the mid-1960s, he was one of the fi ...
,
Emperor Rosko
Michael Joseph Pasternak (born 26 December 1942), known by his stage name Emperor Rosko, is an American presenter of rock music programmes, most widely known for his shows on Radio Caroline and BBC Radio 1 in the UK in the 1960s and early 1970s.
...
and
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey (DJ) and radio presenter. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly fr ...
.
"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", filmed in July 1973 and broadcast on Wednesday, 24 October of that year, dealt with the British record industry's efforts to find a new pre-teen boy singing star to rival Americans such as
Jimmy Osmond
James Arthur Osmond (born April 16, 1963), also known as Little Jimmy Osmond, is an American singer, actor, and businessman. He is the youngest member of the sibling musical group the Osmonds. As a solo artist, Osmond has accumulated six gold r ...
. Although it featured, among others, eleven-year-old
Ricky Wilde Ricky may refer to:
Places
* Říčky (Brno-Country District), a village and municipality in the Czech Republic
* Říčky v Orlických horách, a village in the north of the Czech Republic
*Rickmansworth, a town in England sometimes called "Ricky ...
(son of
Marty Wilde
Marty Wilde, (born Reginald Leonard Smith; 15 April 1939) is an English singer and songwriter. He was among the first generation of British pop stars to emulate American rock and roll, scoring several 1950s hit singles including " Endless Sl ...
), the programme primarily concerned itself with the ill-fated eleven-year-old
Darren Burn, an ex-Christ Church Senior Chorister from Southgate in north London and the son of EMI executive Colin Burn.
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
spent a lot of money promoting him and, although his initial record releases in 1973 were produced by
Eric Woolfson
Eric Norman Woolfson (18 March 1945 – 2 December 2009) was a Scottish songwriter, lyricist, vocalist, executive producer, pianist, and co-creator of The Alan Parsons Project. Together with Parsons they sold over 50 million albums worldwide. ...
, his record career failed to take off; his first single, "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart", backed with "True Love Ways" (EMI 2040) reached number 60 in the charts. The programme contains an interview with Darren Burn by reporter
John Pitman, in which Burn comes across as very intelligent and sophisticated for his age. In July 1988, during his last BBC Television interview ("People...Whatever Happened To Darren Burn?"), Burn, then aged 26, referring to his ill-fated launch in 1973, told John Pitman that it had been "a very strange thing for a young child to go through" and that it had left him "with a feeling of failure." He also appeared to be blaming his parents for allowing him go through the whole affair and told Pitman: "I certainly wouldn't allow one of my children to do that...should I ever have any." He died in October 1991, aged 30, in his flat in Southwark, south London, after taking an overdose of anti-depressants. Music critic Roy Carr, a contributor to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", said on the programme: "There are a lot of charlatans in this business who are out to make a quick buck and they don't care who they get it off!"
In October 1979, ''Man Alive'' covered the contraction of the
Triumph motorcycles factory at
Meriden with many original members of the
workers' co-operative
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by ...
being made redundant. Their leaving enabled Triumph to survive a further 4 years although, as shown on the programme, there was much bitterness and regret surrounding their departure, particularly as many participated in the original
sit-in that stopped the new owners,
NVT, closing Meriden down.
One of ''Man Alive's'' most eloquent, if least known, films was "Alone", which was broadcast over Christmas 1970. Looking at loneliness through a range of candid interviewees, including a widower who was desperate not to burden anyone else but could find no solace in his life since the death of his wife, a man who had found himself gradually losing touch with his family, and a girl who dwelt at busy railway stations to feel a sense of company.
By 1975, there were fewer ''Man Alive'' programmes being made: 28 that year, followed by one in 1976, eight in 1978. The number of programmes commissioned did go back up to beyond 20 a year for the last three years; though the final documentary series in 1981 included a polemic on road accidents called "The biggest epidemic of our times" which was directed by
Nick Ross
Nicholas David Ross (born 7 August 1947) is a British radio and television presenter. During the 1980s and 1990s he was one of the most ubiquitous of British broadcasters but is best known for hosting the BBC TV programme ''Crimewatch'', whi ...
and which went on to be transferred to BBC1 and repeated and updated for several years, and turned out to have a major impact on government policy.
But overall, the film which perhaps best sums up the series' strengths is "Gale is Dead", the story of 19-year-old Gale Parsons, who died a drug addict on 11 February 1970, during the making of the film. She had been brought up in no less than 14 institutions and was convinced that she mattered to no one. Her story was told mainly through the eyes of Mrs. Nancy David, a teacher who became a key figure in her life.
Beyond ''Man Alive''
The ''Man Alive'' films were followed in 1982 by an attempt to create 'studio documentaries' called the ''Man Alive Debate'', each of which tried to create a live documentary-style narrative with the story's cast of characters gathered at the
BBC Television Centre
Television Centre (TVC) is a building complex in White City, West London, that was the headquarters of BBC Television between 1960 and 2013. After a refurbishment, the complex reopened in 2017 with three studios in use for TV production, opera ...
in west London. Although it held its own for a while the strand was eventually replaced by ''
40 Minutes'', which returned to the all-film format but without presenter or reporter, thus marking a turn towards the so-called fly-on-the-wall documentary. The replacement for ''Man Alive'' was edited by
Edward Mirzoeff
Edward Mirzoeff CVO, CBE (born 11 April 1936) is a prominent British television producer and documentary filmmaker.
Early life
Mirzoeff won an Open Scholarship in Modern History to The Queen's College, Oxford in 1953, obtaining a BA (Oxon) in 1 ...
. (''The Times'' 1989).
Wilcox set up the Man Alive Group, an independent production company formed with original ''Man Alive'' producer
Michael Latham
Sir Michael Anthony Latham DL HonFREng Royal Academy of Engineering. (20 November 1942 – 2 November 2017) was a British Conservative Member of Parliament.
Political career
Latham was elected to the Churchill Ward on Westminster City Council ...
. Latham died in January 2006.
Desmond Wilcox continued to make television programmes as an independent producer, in 1983 his film, "The Boy David" for the BBC's ''The Visit'' centred on David Lopez, abandoned as a baby in Peru, who had a disease eating away at his face.
Desmond Wilcox died in September 2000.
Notable ''Man Alive'' reporters
*
Anna Ford
Anna Ford (born 2 October 1943) is an English former journalist, television presenter and newsreader. She first worked as a researcher, news reporter and later newsreader for Granada Television, ITN, and the BBC. Ford helped launch the British ...
*
Angela Huth
*
Malcolm Muggeridge
Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge (24 March 1903 – 14 November 1990) was an English journalist and satirist. His father, H. T. Muggeridge, was a socialist politician and one of the early Labour Party Members of Parliament (for Romford, in Essex). In ...
*
John Percival
John Percival (3 April 1779 – 7 September 1862), known as Mad Jack Percival, was a celebrated officer in the United States Navy during the Quasi-War with France, the War of 1812, the campaign against West Indies pirates, and the Mexican–Amer ...
*
John Pitman
*
Jonathan Power
Jonathan may refer to:
*Jonathan (name), a masculine given name
Media
*Jonathan (1970 film), ''Jonathan'' (1970 film), a German film directed by Hans W. Geißendörfer
*Jonathan (2016 film), ''Jonathan'' (2016 film), a German film directed by ...
*
Jack Pizzey
Jack Charles Allan Pizzey (2 February 1911 – 31 July 1968) was a Queensland Country Party politician. He was Premier of Queensland, in a coalition with the Liberal Party, from 17 January 1968 until his death on 31 July that year. To date, h ...
*
Nick Ross
Nicholas David Ross (born 7 August 1947) is a British radio and television presenter. During the 1980s and 1990s he was one of the most ubiquitous of British broadcasters but is best known for hosting the BBC TV programme ''Crimewatch'', whi ...
*
Desmond Wilcox
Desmond John Wilcox (21 May 1931 – 6 September 2000) was a British television producer, documentary filmmaker, journalist and television executive. He worked at the BBC and ITV during his career and was producer of series such as '' This ...
*
Harold Williamson
*
Jeanne La Chard
*
Jim Douglas Henry
*
Jeremy James
References
* ''The Times'' newspaper, 17 May 1989 by Bryan Appelyard
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Man Alive (Bbc Tv Series)
BBC television documentaries
1960s British documentary television series
Investigative documentary television series