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The
Supersizers Go...
Tuesday 20 May
9.00-10.00pm BBC TWO
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Giles Coren and Sue Perkins
Supersize their way through
the cuisine of six different eras
in Britain’s history Writer and restaurant critic Giles Coren, who has a love of good food, and writer and comedian Sue Perkins, who is a lover of cabbage and carrots, are about to supersize their way through the cuisine of six different eras in Britain's history – Wartime, Restoration, Victorian, Seventies, Elizabethan and Regency – in a new series.
Resplendent in period costume, Sue and Giles bring history alive with wit, humour and the occasional burp. Each week, a renowned chef is on hand to feed them the culinary treats of the age – such as sheep's head, coxcombs and eel – all washed down with copious amounts of beer, wine and hippocras.
Experts are on hand to explain the social behaviour and rituals of people from the six eras, and Giles and Sue undergo medical testing after each diet to determine the impact of the cuisine and lifestyle on their health.
Today's opener, entitled The Supersizers Go … Wartime, sees Giles and Sue don their Forties wartime utilitarian chic and grab their ration books as they discover what it was really like to live on the Home Front during the Second World War. Aided by chef Allegra McEvedy, they dine on spam, dried egg, innumerable potatoes, have some GIs round for tea and discover the awful truth behind what Winston Churchill was eating in his Cabinet War Rooms.
The Supersizers endure blackouts and air raids, suffer through morning broadcasts from the Ministry of Food and, in an act of sheer desperation, Sue even sacrifices her honour for a black market chicken. Giles and Sue celebrate the end of the war with a traditional Victory Party, which sees Allegra cooking up a veritable feast for the whole street.
After five years of rationing, Britain found that it was the healthiest it had ever been. However, what will the effect be on Giles and Sue after just one week of living on the breadline and will they ever be able to stomach eating another potato again?
TH
Class
Of '62 – From 16 To 60
Monday 19 May
9.00-10.30pm BBC TWO
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Katy, Margaret, Sally, Gillian
(L-R back row), Dorothy,
Marilyn
and Denise (L-R front
row) are the
Class Of ‘62 Class Of '62 – From 16 To 60, by award-winning documentary director Marilyn Gaunt, offers a fascinating insight into the lives of six of her school friends, who are among the first baby boomers to turn 60. All born in 1946, these spunky, working-class Yorkshire women have lived, loved, laughed and cried their way through the Swinging Sixties to the Naughty Noughties.
Marilyn started filming her friends in 1983 at a reunion she had organised for the 27 girls in her class. It was the start of a 25-year journey which captured the lives of classmates Sally, the class "star"; Denise, the rebel; Margaret, the boy magnet; Dorothy, the quiet one; Gillian, the early leaver; and Katy, the class clown.
In the first film they were pushing 40, and Marilyn returned to make a second film in 1995, as they approached their fifties. Now, as they all turn 60 and can collect their pensions, she catches up with her old friends one last time in her swan-song film.
Since 1995, their lives have taken very different paths – only two remain in Leeds and three now live abroad. Partners have been lost, new ones found, hopes dashed and hopes fulfilled. Their lives are more captivating than many soap operas.
Using archive from the two previous films, as well as new footage, the film looks back over the 45 years since they all left school, and forward as these ordinary, yet extraordinary, women face the future.
SB
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