ARENA – Ligmalion: Or How to Help Yourself in Self-Help Britain - BBC2 - 1985

This production has a special place in my heart, as until very recently I had not seen this since it was on TV back in 1985. I thought it was lost forever, carelessly taped over or destroyed by the BBC as they seem inclined to do from time to time, when they should be the curators of what is, after all, chunks of our species’ recorded history. For me, this particular episode of BBC’s Arena is a piece of history on both a political and a personal level. Political, because watching it now we are beamed back to 1984/5 at the peak of Thatcherism, expressing the ugly core values of her legacy, now absorbed and adopted throughout the world. Personal, because my bro plays the main protagonist Gordan Shilling. Written by David Leland, directed by Peter Finch and soundtracked by 80’s jazz outfit Working Week, it is a combination of set pieces (with some unexpected cameos) and plenty of unscripted real-life moments in which Gordan is thrown into various situations (camera following), with the primary aim of min