´óÏó´«Ã½ Four Winter/Spring 2007
The Way We Live Now Season
´óÏó´«Ã½ Four holds up a mirror to the British this winter. Unpicking the foibles, idiosyncrasies, behaviour and lifestyles of the British today, this mini-season questions just where Middle England really is, observing the Brits on holiday, sitting in waiting rooms and indulging in their favourite pastimes.
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Holidays
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Fresh from probing the nooks and crannies of the National Trust, Director Patrick Forbes continues his tour of Britain's psyche with Holidays, a four-part examination of our national obsession with time off.
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The series packs its case and heads for the coastal town of Rock, where new money is driving Cornish property prices to astronomic heights. Britain's most expensive property is not a Mayfair mansion but a three-bed semi on the Rock waterfront, priced at £2.3million or £1,800 per square metre.
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In North West England, viewers witness the desperate drama of Blackpool's battle with the Dome – ranches, Prescott and all – to secure the "super casino" licence and reverse years of decline.
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In Turkey, the series meets harassed Sunsail executive Andy Hancock, as he bids to get his company's million-pound development ready in time for the waiting hordes of middle-class clients.
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Finally, Holidays catches up with industry giant MyTravel. The company organises package holidays to Florida for more than a million Brits a year, but this year it is also offering something a little different: its first package holiday to China.
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But can China cope with the British working-class holidaymaker? "There seems an awful lot of rice on this menu," says one.
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Trophy People
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Presented by comedian Marcus Brigstocke, this light-hearted, four-part documentary series celebrates British people's passion for unusual pastimes and uncovers their deep-rooted competitive spirit.
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The nation's will to win may be under question in the world of sport, but when it comes to Britain's best bell-ringer or Scrabble player, there's an unquenchable desire to come out on top.
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The Hunt For Middle England
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Flick through any newspaper and it soon becomes clear that Middle England is a force to be reckoned with. Politicians are desperate to woo it, asylum seekers had best avoid it, and anyone who sees themselves as an upstanding citizen could do a lot worse than move to it (if they can afford its escalating house prices, that is).
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Middle England is where elections are won, where normality reigns and where moral laws are written. It's powerful, it's scary and it's the heart of the country – but where the hell is it?
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To track down Mr and Mrs Middle England, actor and comedian Chris Addison (The Thick Of It, The State We're In) quizzes demographers, politicians and statisticians.
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Do Middling folk really love fair play, manners and wind chimes and hate high taxes, white vans and perverts? These are some of the questions Chris sets out to answer as he hunts down Middle England, taking to the road for this hilarious ramble and rant around our green and pleasant land.
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The Waiting Room
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Like a television version of confession, this series draws out the dreams and preoccupations of different groups of people living in Britain today by talking to them in the one place where they have a bit of time to spare: the waiting room.
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While they watch their clothes tumble through the drier or the varnish set on their freshly painted nails, the contributors in these films spill out their life stories with breathtaking honesty.
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For the most part, what they want to talk about is love: how they hope for love, how they wish they had found love, how they regret having missed out on love or thrown away the chance of love, and how they have given up everything else in life for love.
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Sometimes funny, sometimes sad and sometimes touching, this series stops Britons in their tracks for just a few minutes to force them to reflect on what really matters in their lives.
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Confined to a single room with neither commentary nor captions, the films simply offer viewers the chance to discover what preoccupies ordinary people living in Britain today.
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