It Was Alright in the 70s

- Season 2

(2015)

The second series begins with a look at what was regarded as being acceptable educational material in the 1970s. These include a graphic sex education film for schools and a science experiment that nearly results in drowning.

The series begins a four-episode diversion into different eras, starting with the 1980s. With the advent of alternative programming and a fourth TV channel, were the '80s a bold new era, or just as problematic in their own way?

The 1960s brought new freedoms in society, which television tried to reflect. Among the guests on this edition are Joan Hooley, discussing television's first interracial kiss, and Peter Wyngarde, expressing regret at working in blackface.

With the end of the 1990s less than 15 years in the past, the commentators assembled to watch clips are expecting very little difference to modern society. Instead they uncover a world of drinking culture, sensationalism and barbed irony.

The series ends its excursion into different eras by returning the 1980s. A time of mass unemployment, video nasties, a renewed Cold War and the threat of AIDs, where even the advent of the home computer could be seen as a threat.

A look back at how Britain used to entertain itself in the days of austerity and the three day week, with personal safety not considered. Contributors include Tony Blackburn, talking about his own experience singing to five live lions.