Diary: What to see and do this month

Broadcaster David Dimbleby, whose new series explores the BBC’s varied role in British life

WATCH

Voice of the nation

As the “constitutional basis for the BBC”, the Royal Charter sets out the corporation’s “Object, Mission and Public Purposes”. Here is a document that in key ways formalises Auntie’s role in British life. Except, of course, real life is messy, and the part played by the BBC is also shaped by the way its programmes and journalism intersect with governments, current events, its audience and wider societal change.

These are delicate subjects, which is perhaps why David Dimbleby’s BBC: A Very British History – part of programming marking the BBC’s centenary – bears the name of a trusted journalist whose family is synonymous with the corporation’s history.

Over three episodes, he goes behind the scenes to investigate controversies that have affected the BBC and its viewers over the past six decades. The first programme, “Power”, focuses on recent instances of this nature, and also considers how the BBC has preserved its independence. “Trust Matters” looks at how the Hutton Inquiry, which investigated the circumstances around the death of weapons inspector David Kelly, and the revelations of sex abuse by Jimmy Savile, affected trust in the BBC.

“Whose BBC?” examines how the corporation tries to serve all of its audience, and considers issues raised by coverage of the Falklands War and race relations – when the BBC’s impartiality has been tested.

David Dimbleby’s BBC: A Very British History

BBC Two / September

Weekly TV & radio

Visit historyextra.com for updates on upcoming T V and radio programmes

“We now know about the damage fame causes – both to the celebrity and also, in a way, to us”

Radio producer ALAN HALL (left) tells us about his new series, which explores the history of celebrity culture – framed through Elizabeth Taylor’s life

Your new show, Icon, looks at celebrity

through the lens of Elizabeth Taylor. What can you tell us about it?

It’s a classic radio series in the sense that it’s pursuing an abstract idea – the nature of celebrity and celebrity culture – but the unusual thing is there’s no presenter. So the story has to reveal itself; the ideas in the series need to be almost negotiating between themselves. And a way to do that is to begin with the experiences of perhaps the most iconic of all screen goddesses, Elizabeth Taylor.

She was a child star within the Hollywood system. She was involved in romantic scandals. She was the first major celebrity to publicly admit going into rehab. She got into branding, commodifying herself with perfumes and jewellery. And she was key to making Ronald Reagan act on the Aids crisis in the 1980s.

How successful was Taylor in commodifying herself?

With perfume, people bought into it, because they kind of believed that she would wear the perfumes that bore her name, and would smell like that. When she then tried to move into jewellery it was less successful, because actually most of those products were tat compared with the real diamonds she actually had at home! ul se

How does her relationship with Richard Burton add to the picture?

The relationship with Burton is where the story starts, in that we open with the taking of a particular paparazzi photograph of Taylor and Richard Burton, caught embracing on a yacht in 1962 when they ewere both married to other people.

We’re taking that as a starting point for a modern kind of celebrity. Before then, in Hollywood the star was shielded by the studio, but at this point [during the filming of Cleopatra] Taylor almost goes a bit rogue and seems to be saying: “Yes, we’ll come to a deal where I am available. And it’s not just my public self that you can have – it’s my private self.”

We then follow that idea through time. We talk to photographer Danny Hayward, who worked closely with Jade Goody [who found fame in reality TV show Big Brother]; they were colluding, and both were making money. With Goody, it went to the Nth degree: she was being photographed on her deathbed. is

Is there an overarching idea that runs through the whole series?

What we’re trying to do is get an understanding of why we still need these people – especially now that we know about the damage fame causes both to the celebrity and also, in a way, to us.

We live vicariously through these people. What does that say about us?

Ic con will be bror adcast on BB BC Radio 4 fromr Tuesday 13 September

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Italy, c1962. Both were married to other people at the time →