Episode one
With lively enthusiasm, Robert Peston takes us back to the 1940s for this new series about Britain’s history of shops and shopping; with one in nine of us employed in retail, and the rest of us seemingly addicted to it, it should be as popular as Primark is to teenagers. But those teenagers are likely to be turning off in droves at the black and white footage of post-war shops, drab housewives in drab housecoats, and dialogue like; ‘If you wanted vegetables, you went to a greengrocer’. And the plinky-plonk light entertainment music is downright annoying whatever age you are.
Still, the look at the arrival of supermarkets and ready meals, and the departure of retail price maintenance, is thoughtful in a ‘let’s not blind them with economics’ way, and seeing how brands such as Asda, Marks & Spencer and Dixon not only revolutionised the experience of shopping in Britain, but impacted massively on consumer consumption, daily life, work, livelihoods and manufacturing, is interesting, if not terribly revelatory.
A fun trip down memory lane for the over-50s more than anything else, especially when chirpy Peston gets to the 1960s and shopping as leisure in sexy stores like Chelsea Girl. Primark and the emergence of a throwaway culture next week, presumably, and hopefully a little more analysis with the history.
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