Options
BBC 4 22:50 These Four Walls
Prince Monalulu
Posts: 35,900 Forum Member
✭
Kinda antidote to Benefits street according to the TV review I saw.
These Four Walls
Five stories of aspiration against a background of poverty and austerity. With the aim of finding the real people behind familiar media stereotypes, documentary-maker Peter Gordon travels through Yorkshire and talks to some of those struggling through hard times.
Fran and her daughter Niamh live in one of the most deprived parts of Leeds in a house whose fabric is falling apart. Niamh, without telling her mother, applied for entry to an exclusive fee-paying school, one she has always dreamed of attending. She won a bursary.
These Four Walls
Five stories of aspiration against a background of poverty and austerity. With the aim of finding the real people behind familiar media stereotypes, documentary-maker Peter Gordon travels through Yorkshire and talks to some of those struggling through hard times.
Fran and her daughter Niamh live in one of the most deprived parts of Leeds in a house whose fabric is falling apart. Niamh, without telling her mother, applied for entry to an exclusive fee-paying school, one she has always dreamed of attending. She won a bursary.
0
Comments
Well that goes without saying, doesn't it?
BBC 4 quite late, no repeated trailers, this will disappear without trace, but it'll be interesting of the few of us who like this sort of thing.
Telegraph review.
Niamh's Mum is certainly giving a good account of herself IMO.
Just found out it was made by the Joseph Roundtree trust and 'aired' on the Guardian website in 2012 as a series of shorts.
Shame BBC Four couldn't have given it a bit more fanfare, especially given the noise over Benefits street, not that I watched it.
Telegraph review
Reviewer seems to have a bit of a downer on the fact that Charlotte was interviewed while the kids were up and about, and the place was a bit messy, and she could have been interviewed when the kids were asleep apparently.
Well that's what a house is like at times when you've got small children it's a bit messy while things get done.
One was based on a diary kept by one man who was out of work. The diary was anonymised but they managed to identify the family and where they lived which was part of an archaeological survey so they could walk around the basement of the house. They then found descendants and took them to the place where he lived.
Looks like that's the only broadcast it's going to get, looking at the webpage, another 6 days on the Iplayer.
It could be a rights issue, similar to the BBC's Timeshift strand as it's bought-in content.
I can only guess it was someone at the BBC's pet project to get it aired at all.
I think I've got a vague memory of that.
I remember a chap walking miles into town day in day out looking for work, but finding nothing.
Caught out by my own 'agenda' here, Rountree Foundation and the BBC have some history of working together before, the Why Poverty season been one.
So it's not some terrible indictment on TV generally and it takes someone's pet project to get some less sensationalist content on TV.
I'll go away and calm down...
Yes, he was getting up at something like 05:30h every day and walking many miles trying to find work. No sitting at home all day watching Sky Sports on a 60" screen in those days!
Might be worth asking the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, they might know if there are repeats.
All of them had the ambition to get out of the poverty trap through their own efforts, I never got a feeling that they were playing the system at all.