London on Film. Tonight on BBC4

[cassidy]

Looks interesting but short 8.30pm-9.00pm BBC4 tonight. London on Film- The West End. Promises archive footage of the West End.

[Gerald Lovell]

And possibly including footage of Tom Baker getting sloshed??

[Tonch]

Fabulous little pot pourri of archive footage and interviews which gave a real flavour of the West End over the past few decades. My only complaint is that it was far too brief.

I loved the jumble of clips chopping between b&w and colour and leapfrogging back and forth through the eras.

Best of all for me was that Sidney Green, "The Protein Man", was captured for posterity on one of his endless Oxford Street rambles complete with leaflets and sandwichboard - an omnipresent character of that thoroughfare on my many Saturday visits there during the early 1980s (shame we never saw any footage of the Hare Krishna parade though).

Looking forward to part two and the East End next!

[cassidy]

6d to park your car and a £2 fine if you were late back, Those were the days !

[Andy H]

I've put part one on DVD for the archive. I love these old clips and I particularly like to see the colour ones from the late 50's/ early 60's(?) that look so sunny and clean and had those cheery voice-overs. They have a certain quality about them. I suspect many of them come from Rank's Look at Life series or similar.

[Steve Crook]

I've put part one on DVD for the archive. I love these old clips and I particularly like to see the colour ones from the late 50's/ early 60's(?) that look so sunny and clean and had those cheery voice-overs. They have a certain quality about them. I suspect many of them come from Rank's Look at Life series or similar.

They only filmed the clean bits

Steve

[Freddy]

I don't know if they used this but youtube have London Metropolitan Archives available.

http://www.youtube.com/user/LdnMetAr...?feature=watch

[Windyridge]

Who knew that Ben Kingsley started off as a steeplejack.

[Marine Boy]

What a wonderful programme. Fascinating clips, but as others have said, I would have liked more.