The House the 50s Built

7 June 2012

Episode 1/4, Thursday 7th June, 9pm, Channel 4

To coincide with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, this new four-part series celebrates the science behind the inventions and innovations that transformed the way we lived and catapulted an exhausted, post-war country into the modernity of 1950s Britain.

Engineer and showman Professor Brendan Walker sets out to discover the ingenuity and life-changing technology behind the inventions that took drab, black and white post-war Britain and launched it, under its new young Queen Elizabeth 2nd, into a Technicolor-drenched world of the future.

Brendan will learn from practical, hands-on experience exactly what it took to bring about the 50s revolution by reconstructing a house. Each programme focuses on a room and fast-forwards it through the 1950s, showcasing how progress in the home triggered a tsunami of social change.

Brendan experiments with everything from how to make a Formica kitchen and using atomic bomb know-how to make a non-stick pan, to how to turn a vat of chemicals into comfortable lingerie that changed women's lives.

The first programme starts with the engine room of the house - the kitchen.  Women spent about 70 hours each week on house work and the majority of that time was spent in the kitchen.  But their lives were about to be transformed beyond recognition.  Out with free-standing units, the mangle and a larder, and in with fitted units, a twin tub, food processor and refrigerator. 

We hear first-hand from people who lived through the decade - from the local WI to celebrities like Maureen Lipman and Fay Weldon, as well as modern designers like Wayne and Geraldine Hemingway, Kevin McCloud and vintage enthusiasts in their 20s and 30s.

Episode two of The House the 50s Built focuses on the transformation of the living room, including the television, the Series Seven chair made famous by Christine Keeler, wallpaper paste and vinyl paint.

Director: James Franklin
Series Producer: Michael Douglas
Exec Producer: Jonathan Hewes
Commissioning Editor: Jill Fullerton-Smith