Yolanda Brooks looks at what broadcasters are doing for ICT
TV upstairs and down
We are a nation of voyeurs, and watching strangers’ emotional highs and lows is not just a national habit but seems to have become a personal birthright. Luckily there’s no shortage of people willing to let it all hang out for our viewing pleasure.
A few years ago, there used to be real-life documentaries that were respectful and followed their protagonists at a distance. Usually the programme followed the worthwhile work of some institution or other. Now these slice-of-artificial-life programmes are less “fly-on-the-wall” and more “hidden camera in the bedroom, covert microphone under the duvet”.
Today television is only a bit-part player in these reality documentaries. The internet enables us to bypass the editors and arbiters of taste and catch all the bits that are too rude (or sometimes just too boring) for primetime TV consumption.
Of course, not all shows with real people are like Big Brother, Survivor or Ibiza Uncovered, which have little more than prurience value. Some, like The Edwardian Country House, which has just started on Channel 4, like to throw something educational into the mix.
The Edwardian Country House is the third in the acclaimed domestic retro series from Channel 4 which includes The 1900 House and The 1940s House. Like its predecessors, it will subject a bunch of 21st century softies and leave them to suffer the deprivations and social expectations of a past era in front of the camera. Unlike the previous versions, though, it won’t be just a family in the spotlight, but the staff needed to run a grand house - a sort of re-enactment of Upstairs Downstairs.
On-screen, a family of five, plus a staff of 14, ranging from the butler to the scullery maid, will be trying to navigate the social rules that kept you in your place before the First World War broke out. Online, viewers will be able to find historical background from the time, and most interesting of all, there’s a quiz that works out what you would have been doing in 1905 if you’d been alive and kicking at the time.
The BBC continues the nostalgia theme with its new series called Dickens. Covering the man, his work and the world in which he lived, rather than focusing on the books themselves, the series recreates Victorian London to show the events and locations that influenced his work.
The joint website will feature a Qamp;A session with series narrator and author Peter Ackroyd, games with Dickensian characters, and access to a Dickens expert ready to answer your questions about Victorian life.
First for news
Back in the modern world, you can keep your grip on reality with First Edition, the news programme for secondary students. First Edition presents an adult-news agenda in child-friendly packaging. So you won’t find soft-focus news stories, but the same ones found on Channel 4 News without the gore. It’s even presented by Jon Snow with the help of child presenters. The First Edition website is a snappy, graphics-heavy affair that carries archive material going back to September last year, a current affairs quiz and media jargon section.
Numbertime, the key stage 1 programme from BBC Education is now in the middle of its new addition and subtraction strand. Related worksheets, online games, and - if you can bear it - song such as Bottles of Pop and Sign of the Plus are all available on the sister site.
You give me Fifa in the morning With most Fifa World Cup matches taking place at the cornflake hour, it may be difficult to control football fever when the bell rings at the start of the day. So if you can’t beat them, join them online with the BBC.
This year, the corporation has two sites - one for serious stat-heads and newshounds (www.bbc.co.ukworldcup) and the other for those more into the gossip and trivia surrounding the games (www.bbc.co.ukfivelive). The websites of course accompanies morning and evening TV coverage with the familiar experts sitting in the studios.
Edwardian Country House, Channel 4, Thursdays from April 25, 9pm www.channel4.comcountryhouse Dickens, BBC 2 May 18, scheduled for 9pm, but this time may be subject to change
www.bbc.co.ukdickens
First Edition, Channel 4, April 30, May 1, 14, 15, 21 amp; 22 at 11.25am www.4learning.comlearningmicrositesfirstedition
