''The Holy Family Album'' is a

television documentary Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. *Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

written and narrated by

Angela Carter Angela Olive Pearce (formerly Carter, Stalker; 7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992), who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picar ...

. It was directed by Jo Ann Kaplan and produced by John Ellis at Large Door Productions, London, UK. It was broadcast on the UK's

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

on 3 December 1991 as part of the '' Without Walls'' series, commissioned by Waldemar Januszczak. The documentary treats representations of Christ in Western art as if they are photographs in God's photo album. According to John Ellis, the programme "caused considerable controversy", and was criticised in an editorial in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' even before it was transmitted. The programme was featured in Channel 4's review programme ''

Right to Reply ''Right to Reply'' (sometimes called ''R2R'') is a British television series shown on Channel 4 from 1982 until 2001, which allowed viewers to voice their complaints or concerns about TV programmes. It featured reports, usually presented by a v ...

'' and a complaint to the

Broadcasting Standards Council Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...

was not upheld. It has not been retransmitted or published since Angela Carter's death in 1992.

References

*Charlotte Crofts (2003) '' Anagrams of Desire: Angela Carter's Writings for Radio, Film and Television'' (London: Chatto & Windus), pp. 168–193.

External links

Link to 'Holy Family Album' on Vimeo
Channel 4 original programming Dramatic works by Angela Carter Documentary films about Christianity 1991 television specials British television documentaries {{documentary-tv-film-stub