Episode 1
Alex 'The Hurricane' Higgins upsets the snooker establishment but helps transform a game played in the backrooms of working men’s clubs into box office gold.
The first episode explores how Alex 'The Hurricane' Higgins helped transform snooker from a game played in the backrooms of working men’s clubs to a national sporting obsession.
Interest in the sport had been growing thanks to the new possibilities of colour broadcasting, and in particular the weekly snooker show Pot Black, first commissioned by none other than David Attenborough. But it was the antics of the unpredictable Ulstersman and snooker genius, Higgins, that took the game stratospheric.
Raw and unpredictable on the table, outspoken and badly behaved off it, Higgins declared war on the 1970s snooker establishment, entering into a years-long rivalry with the man who more than anyone embodied the old guard, ex-policeman Ray Reardon. Higgins and Reardon didn’t see eye to eye, but it was well known that Higgins could start a fight in an empty room. As the 70s wore on, the tabloids gleefully reported on a string of on- and off-the-table misdeeds.
Almost inevitably, Reardon and Higgins eventually came face to face in the World Championship final of 1982, in what was by far the biggest tournament to date. The clash of the two snooker titans - the paragon of the establishment against the self-described ‘People’s Champion’ - would be the match that redefined the British public’s relationship with the sport and set the course for a decade where it would become box office gold.
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Music Played
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Jacques Dutronc
Cactus
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Undertone
Family Entertainment
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Winifred Atwell
Black & White Rag ('Snooker' Theme Tune)
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Neu!
Hallogallo
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Sweet
Block Buster!
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Franco Lorca
The Air That I Breathe
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T. Rex
Ride a White Swan
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T. Rex
Ride a White Swan
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Dr. Feelgood
Milk And Alcohol
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Dr. Feelgood
Roxette
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Cream
Strange BrewÂ
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Shuggie Otis
Bootie Cooler
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The Douglas Wood Group
Snooker
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Todd Terje
Delorean Dynamite
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Department S
Is Vic There?
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Bronski Beat
Smalltown Boy
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Bronski Beat
Smalltown Boy
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Kosheen
Little Boy
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Depeche Mode
Just Can't Get Enough
Credits
Role | Contributor |
---|---|
Director | Martin Fuller |
Producer | Laurence Turnbull |
Executive Producer | Arron Fellows |
Executive Producer | Louis Theroux |
Production Company | Mindhouse Productions |
Broadcasts
- Sun 9 May 2021 21:00
- Wed 14 Jul 2021 00:15´óÏó´«Ã½ Two except Wales & Wales HD
- Tue 29 Mar 2022 21:00
- Wed 30 Mar 2022 01:40
- Sun 9 Apr 2023 23:30´óÏó´«Ã½ Two except Northern Ireland & Northern Ireland HD
- Sun 12 Jan 2025 22:00
- Mon 13 Jan 2025 01:00
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