Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The people who watch television programmes confront the people who make them,
presented by Cliff Michelmore with the help of a studio audience.
The subject of this edition is Cathy Come Home, the television play written by Jeremy Sandford and directed by Ken Loach, which tackles the subject of homelessness in Britain. Upon its first broadcast as part of The Wednesday Play strand of programmes in 1966, the Radio Times described Cathy Come Home as "semi-documentary" - blending drama with real world statistics, and using the type of filming techniques and editing conventions typically employed in actuality programming. Some critics felt that it was difficult to distinguish what was real from what was unreal in the film.
Mr Michael Walton, a lecturer at Hull University, feels that the blurring of fact and fiction in Cathy Come Home cheapens the serious points it was trying to raise. Grace Wyndham-Goldie, a BBC executive, considers the programme part of "a new and dangerous trend in television drama."
Tony Garnett, the film's producer, is on hand to defend it.
Clip taken from Talkback, originally broadcast on BBC One, 19 November, 1968.
You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults.
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The people who watch television programmes confront the people who make them,
presented by Cliff Michelmore with the help of a studio audience.
The subject of this edition is Cathy Come Home, the television play written by Jeremy Sandford and directed by Ken Loach, which tackles the subject of homelessness in Britain. Upon its first broadcast as part of The Wednesday Play strand of programmes in 1966, the Radio Times described Cathy Come Home as "semi-documentary" - blending drama with real world statistics, and using the type of filming techniques and editing conventions typically employed in actuality programming. Some critics felt that it was difficult to distinguish what was real from what was unreal in the film.
Mr Michael Walton, a lecturer at Hull University, feels that the blurring of fact and fiction in Cathy Come Home cheapens the serious points it was trying to raise. Grace Wyndham-Goldie, a BBC executive, considers the programme part of "a new and dangerous trend in television drama."
Tony Garnett, the film's producer, is on hand to defend it.
Clip taken from Talkback, originally broadcast on BBC One, 19 November, 1968.
You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults.
Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive - youtube.com/c/BBCArchive?sub_confirmation=1
You can also dive into plenty more BBC Archive on our website - bbc.co.uk/archive
