Watchification

How Simon Schama must curse the producers of The Tudors, so beautiful, so colourful, so…..Hollyoaks. Which means that it’s a must for anyone who favours style over substance. (Me). And despite knowing what happens in the end, I still hoped that Anne Boleyn, played by the superbly curvy mouthed and impossibly regal Natalie Dormer, would get a last minute reprieve, kick Henry into touch and rule supreme. In fact, coward that I am, I couldn’t watch her beheading, instead hid behind a cushion and muttered to myself about how much I hate the choice of a Playboy bunny to play wife number 3, Jane Seymour. Anyway series two sees Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) still managing to keep those pounds off and striding about court in a very handsome strop. Off with his head.

I heard about the BFI’s YouTube channel on the radio this evening and rushed over to have a look. There are dozens of short films and clips from a hundred years or so of British film, including some funky stuff from Germaine Greer and lots of themed material like these London films. I’ve chosen a strange and evocative propaganda film made towards the end of World War 2, in which school children somewhere in the English countryside celebrate May Day. The BFI archivists have provided lots of interesting notes for each video so be prepared to lose an hour or two…